RE: Dumping RAM contents on Win NT / 2000

From: John Howie (JHowieat_private)
Date: Mon Nov 11 2002 - 10:39:47 PST

  • Next message: Knut Eckstein: "Re: Dumping RAM contents on Win NT / 2000"

    John,
    
    There are two ways to do it:
    
    1) Use a debugger. If you want to get the volatile memory for a process
    this is the easiest way to go about it. If you want to get at the kernel
    you have to use a kernel debugger, you can get that from Microsoft. Get
    Inside Windows 2000 by Solomon and Russinovich as it comes with a great
    kernel debugging tool and a bunch of examples on how to use it. Get this
    book anyway - it is invaluable.
    
    2) Write an application that has the ability to read process memory
    (this will not work if you want to get at the kernel memory. The
    application can use the PSAPI and the Debug Helper library to enumerate
    processes and threads, their memory heaps and structures, and then dump
    them. This is similar to using a debugger as in 1) above but would allow
    you to focus on exactly what you want.
    
    We, Security Toolkit, have a custom application that does 2) from the
    command line - you provide the PID of the process you want dumped and it
    will dump it to a file. It has the advantage in that it freezes the
    process while dumping its memory to a file. We may consider releasing it
    in the future.
    
    Regards,
    
    John Howie
    President, Security Toolkit LLC
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: John Smith [mailto:for3nsicsat_private] 
    Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2002 2:40 PM
    To: focus-msat_private
    Cc: forensicsat_private
    Subject: Dumping RAM contents on Win NT / 2000
    
    Hi all,
    
    I'm conducting some test forensics work on both
    Windows NT and 2000 and found myself wanting to "dump"
    the contents of memory for volatile data investiation.
    Unfortunately I can not find any relevant information
    on tools/howto's on this subject, accept setting a
    Registry key which requires and initial reboot to take
    affect. (which will be useless because after the
    reboot the volatile data would be lost). And yes, the
    fact that the Reg Key wasn't set is an obvious one as
    well :)
    
    Any ideas on how this could be achieved WITHOUT
    setting the particular Registry setting.
    
    Thanks in advance.
    
    
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