Introduction
This article is about forensic investigation of Internet Explorer. This is cover about investigating Internet Explorer history, cache, cookies, favorites. Lets take a look at index.dat file
Index.dat
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has two primary areas of interest. One is “index.dat” database file which is used by the web browser and the browser cache. index.dat is in the format of MSIECF (Microsoft Internet Explorer Cache File Format). The index.dat file contains information of visited URLs including the accessed and modified time, the location of cache directory, HTTP headers and so on and so fourth. Almost every software uses IExplorer for displaying information and for connecting over internet. Programs like skype, Live messenger, etc uses IE. So the history of accessed urls of those applications are also stored in index.dat.
The location of index.dat file
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5
Windows vista and 7:
C:\Users\%username%\ AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5```
Now lets start investigating the index.dat file. I will use a tool name [pasco](http://sourceforge.net/projects/fast/files/Pasco/) by Foundstone which is very old but still used is many Live forensic distros. Here is a example
./pasco -d index.dat
As you see this will give the out put in the following format.
As this is not clear it is better to get a output to a file simple by using ./pasco > outputfile
There is another tool which we extract information in a organized manner. It is called [msiecfexport](http://code.google.com/p/libmsiecf/).
Here is an example:
So you can clearly view the index.dat file.
##Cache
Next we'll investigate the cache files. Cache files are stored locally as a result of the user's web browsing. These files are stored in
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5
Windows vista and 7:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\ Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5```
I will take an example from msiecfexport.
Record type : URL
Offset range : 67968 - 68224 (256)
Location : temp:http://thepaperwall.com/wallpapers/girls/big/big_45fb5c22369e1c5d517f0282bd9250105f407e77.jpg
Primary time : Feb 05, 2013 04:26:07.030000000
Secondary time : Feb 05, 2013 04:26:02.830616500
Filename : big_45fb5c22369e1c5d517f0282bd9250105f407e77[1].jpg
Cache directory index : 1 (0x01)(OV08Z8PA)
As you see the file “big_45fb5c22369e1c5d517f0282bd9250105f407e77[1].jpg
” is locally stored in cache directory “OV08Z8PA”. So the actual location is C:\Users\%username%\AppData\
Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5
/OV08Z8PA/big_45fb5c22369e1c5d517f0282bd9250105f407e77[1].jpg
Well of course this is the file :p
Here is the ouput of the cache by pasco:
URL temp:http://thepaperwall.com/wallpapers/girls/big/big_45fb5c22369e1c5d517f0282bd9250105f407e77.jpg 02/04/2013 20:26:02 02/04/2013 20:26:07 big_45fb5c22369e1c5d517f0282bd9250105f407e77[1].jpg OV08Z8PA
You can again see “OV08Z8PA” is our cache sub directory.
Cookies
Cookies can be found on
```
Windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\ Cookies
Windows Vista and 7:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies```
Cookies are normally in text format and we cannot understand anything.
s_vsn_skypeallprod_1
3876974264756
skype.com/
1600
2798871808
31012227
2587949280
30277570
*
s_vi
[CS]v1|288542BB05010F82-4000012C80000C57[CE]
skype.com/
1024
505403008
30645652
3108158896
30278524
*
SC
CC=:CCY=:LC=en:TM=1359888053:TS=1359888053:TZ=:VER=0/6.1.0.129/272
skype.com/
1536
1767549056
30351564
3897935152
30278138
*
I will use a tool called galleta which is a awesome tool release by McAfee labs.
Cookie File: C:\Users\Osanda\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies\un0wn@skype[2].txt
SITE VARIABLE VALUE CREATION TIME EXPIRE TIME FLAGS
skype.com/ s_vsn_skypeallprod_1 3876974264756 Thu Jan 31 14:52:34 2013 Tue Jan 31 14:52:34 2023 1600
skype.com/ s_vi [CS]v1|288542BB05010F82-4000012C80000C57[CE] Tue Feb 5 08:42:25 2013 Sun Feb 4 08:42:41 2018 1024
skype.com/ SC CC=:CCY=:LC=en:TM=1359888053:TS=1359888053:TZ=:VER=0/6.1.0.129/272 Sun Feb 3 10:40:39 2013 Mon Feb 3 10:40:53 2014 1536
Now you can nicely view the contents in the cookie file.
Favorites
Investigating Favorites will also be interesting in IE. By the user’s bookmarks we can identify what kind of interests he owns.
In windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Favorites
Windows vista and 7:
C:\Users\%username%\FavoritesIn windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Favorites
Windows vista and 7:
C:\Users\%username%\Favorites```
Favorites are in different folders by default and suppose I added google.lk to favorites we can clearly see “Google.url”
Here is an example:
[DEFAULT]
BASEURL=http://www.google.lk/
[{000214A0-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
Prop3=19,2
[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://www.google.lk/
IDList=
IconFile=http://www.google.lk/favicon.ico
IconIndex=1```
Conclusion
Even though you erase history it won’t be deleted and is still their on the index.dat file. There are third party tools which actually erase the index.dat. But remember any file can be recovered in seconds and some third party tools leave traces. So the best would be to shred the index.dat file manually.
