Having the right tools is critical for DFIR practitioners tasked with analyzing, preserving, and extracting digital evidence. While commercial software often comes with a high price tag, open-source tools provide robust and adaptable alternatives that empower DFIR professionals at all levels. These tools have become indispensable resources for practitioners, supporting the complex demands of investigations without the financial burden.
This article introduces five notable open-source tools offering practical support across various stages of digital forensics. From data extraction to analysis, these tools showcase the flexibility and capability that open-source solutions bring to DFIR work. If you’ve developed a valuable tool or have a recommendation for one that has enhanced your investigations, please get in touch.
TRACE
https://github.com/Gadzhovski/TRACE-Forensic-Toolkit
TRACE Forensic Toolkit is an open-source digital forensic analysis tool designed to simplify the investigation of disk images. The tool offers a user-friendly interface and supports key forensic functions like mounting disk images, extracting EXIF metadata, and file carving. It also provides a registry viewer and integrates with VirusTotal for malware checks. With support for multiple image formats like E01 and dd, TRACE is cross-platform compatible and allows investigators to analyze and verify disk images on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
TRACE includes features such as converting E01 images to raw format and verifying the integrity of disk images. Its modular design and compatibility with various file systems make it versatile for forensic examiners. It is a work in progress, with planned improvements for file search and playback features, but the current version is already a robust tool for digital forensics.
UFADE (Universal Forensic Apple Device Extractor)
https://github.com/prosch88/UFADE
UFADE (Universal Forensic Apple Device Extractor) is an open-source tool developed for extracting files from iOS devices on Windows, Linux and macOS. UFADE also offers options for watchOS and tvOS devices.
Primarily serving as a wrapper for pymobiledevice3, it facilitates creating iTunes-style backups and “advanced logical backups” that gather media files, shared app folders, and crash reports. UFADE supports full filesystem backups from jailbroken devices, as well as Unified Log collection.
This tool is particularly useful for forensic investigators working with iOS devices, offering streamlined acquisition methods and a graphical interface for ease of use.
ParseUSBs
https://github.com/khyrenz/parseusbs
ParseUSBs is an open-source Python tool developed by Kathryn Hedley to streamline the extraction of USB connection artifacts from offline Windows Registry hives and Event Logs. Designed to assist forensic investigators in tracking external device usage, the tool parses data from SYSTEM, SOFTWARE, and NTUSER.dat hives, as well as relevant Event Logs, such as Microsoft-Windows-Partition Diagnostic and Microsoft-Windows-Storsvc Diagnostic logs. Built on the regipy and python-evtx libraries, ParseUSBs offers automated parsing of Registry and Event Log entries, making it efficient and highly effective for offline analysis. With output options in both CSV and key-value formats, it can neatly populate forensic tables needed for reporting.
In its latest update, ParseUSBs includes enhanced automation to extract and organize USB connection data. The script now supports parsing individual Registry hives or an entire mounted volume, automatically solving Windows permission issues that required Admin-level access in previous versions. Key data sources parsed by ParseUSBs include SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB and USBSTOR, alongside NTUSER.DAT paths for mounted devices and desktop locations. Additionally, CSV outputs include a timeline of USB events, providing a detailed view of connection and disconnection activities essential for investigation timelines.
xeuledoc
https://github.com/Malfrats/xeuledoc
Xeuledoc is an open-source tool designed for OSINT investigations, allowing users to retrieve information from public Google documents. It supports a wide range of Google services, including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, and others. This makes it particularly useful for digital forensic investigations, where collecting and analyzing public data is critical.
The tool is easy to install using PyPI or GitHub, and it works with Python 3. Its ability to fetch metadata from public documents aids investigators in efficiently gathering intelligence from cloud-based sources without requiring direct access to those documents.
EventLogExpert
https://github.com/microsoft/EventLogExpert
EventLogExpert is an open-source Windows Event Log viewer created by Microsoft to assist digital forensics investigators in analyzing .evtx files. The tool enables users to load and analyze multiple event logs simultaneously, displaying them in an interleaved format for better correlation of events across systems. This feature helps streamline the investigation process, especially when dealing with large volumes of data from various sources.
Additionally, EventLogExpert offers robust filtering capabilities, including customizable LINQ queries, and allows for the creation of a portable event database. This portability lets investigators review logs on different machines without needing the original software, increasing flexibility during investigations. The tool also supports real-time event monitoring, making it a valuable asset for live forensic analysis in security contexts.
Each of these DFIR tools plays a critical role in the forensic investigator’s toolkit. Whether you’re analyzing event logs with EventLogExpert, extracting metadata from Google documents with xeuledoc, or performing advanced data extraction from Apple devices with UFADE, these open-source tools provide flexible, reliable solutions. As digital forensic challenges grow more complex, staying up to date with the latest tools ensures that investigators can handle even the most demanding cases.
