Tools and techniques for Network Forensics

Abstract: Network forensics deals with the capture, recording and analysis of network events in order to discover evidential information about the source of security attacks in a court of law. This paper discusses the different tools and techniques available to conduct network forensics. Some of the tools discussed include: eMailTrackerPro to identify the physical location of an email sender; Web Historian to find the duration of each visit and the files uploaded and downloaded from the visited website; packet sniffers like Etherea to capture and analyze the data exchanged among the different computers in the network. The second half of the paper presents a survey of different IP traceback techniques like packet marking that help a forensic investigator to identify the true sources of the attacking IP packets. We also discuss the use of Honeypots and Honeynets that gather intelligence about the enemy and the tools and tactics of network intruders.