Audit Logs as submissible evidence.

From: mstevensonat_private
Date: Tue Jun 18 2002 - 08:14:56 PDT

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    	There have been a lot of posts about imaging compromised systems and
    using that as forensic evidence, but it seems to me that this
    approach gives a lot
    of clues about the what, but not the who.  Most of the clues that you
    would need to find the what, when, who and how are in the audit logs
    (assuming the administrator turns 
    logging on).  If the audit logs could be handled in such a way that
    it could be proved that they are telling the truth, then it seems to
    me that they would yield enough evidence
    for legal action.  Has anyone had any experience with using audit
    logs as forensic evidence?  What should an administrator do to ensure
    the logs he keeps can be used
    in case legal action is required?  Obviously you can not trust logs
    residing on the compromised system, but what can you trust?  A
    seperate log server using MD5 checksums? What about the things an
    administrator may do to better handle the sheer mass of audit logs? 
    If he parses raw logs and imports them into a database for better
    analysis, does that taint the evidence to where it couldn't be used? 
    What about syslog? Does syslog "taint" the evidence of raw audit
    logs?  If raw kernel generated audit logs are the only things
    submissible as forensic evidence, how do you obtain them and keep
    them "clean"?   
    
    - -Miles
    
    
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