Virtualization and Forensics: A Digital Forensic Investigator’s Guide to Virtual Environments

Virtualization and Forensics: A Digital Forensic Investigators Guide to Virtual Environments offers an in-depth view into the world of virtualized environments and the implications they have on forensic investigations. Named a 2011 Best Digital Forensics Book by InfoSec Reviews, this guide gives you the end-to-end knowledge needed to identify server, desktop, and portable virtual environments, including: VMware, Parallels, Microsoft, and Sun. It covers technological advances in virtualization tools, methods, and issues in digital forensic investigations, and explores trends and emerging technologies surrounding virtualization technology.

This book consists of three parts. Part I explains the process of virtualization and the different types of virtualized environments. Part II details how virtualization interacts with the basic forensic process, describing the methods used to find virtualization artifacts in dead and live environments as well as identifying the virtual activities that affect the examination process. Part III addresses advanced virtualization issues, such as the challenges of virtualized environments, cloud computing, and the future of virtualization.

This book will be a valuable resource for forensic investigators (corporate and law enforcement) and incident response professionals.

Named a 2011 Best Digital Forensics Book by InfoSec ReviewsGives you the end-to-end knowledge needed to identify server, desktop, and portable virtual environments, including: VMware, Parallels, Microsoft, and SunCovers technological advances in virtualization tools, methods, and issues in digital forensic investigationsExplores trends and emerging technologies surrounding virtualization technology

PART 1. VIRTUALIZATION Chapter 1. How Virtualization Happens Chapter 2. Server Virtualization Chapter 3. Desktop Virtualization Chapter 4. Portable Virtualization, Emulators, and Appliances

PART 2. FORENSICS Chapter 5. Investigating Dead Virtual Environments Chapter 6. Investigating Live Virtual Environments Chapter 7. Finding and Imaging Virtual Environments

PART 3. ADVANCED VIRTUALIZATION Chapter 8. Virtual Environments and Compliance Chapter 9. Virtualization Challenges Chapter 10. Cloud Computing and the Forensic Challenges Chapter 11. Visions of the Future: Virtualization and Cloud Computing Appendix: Performing Physical-to-Virtual and Virtual-to-Virtual Migrations