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| Menu | UVK Help: Alternate streams manager | Pub |
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On the Welcome screen, click Alternate streams manager. UVK will be displayed like the screenshot below:
This section allows you to search and manage alternate data streams (ADS). The extract from symantec.com below explains what ADS are. "Alternate data streams have been around since the introduction of NTFS in the Windows NT operating system. What are alternate data streams though? In essence they were created to provide compatibility with HFS, or the old Macintosh Hierarchical File System. The way that the Macintosh's file system works is that they will use both data and resource forks to store their contents. The data fork is for the contents of the document while the resource fork is to identify file type and other pertinent details. |
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To this day the existence of alternate data streams is not widely
known. However they have been in use by some nefarious individuals
in the security community for some time. Whenever something of value
is found to further the agenda of malicious hackers and others with
ill intent, you can rest assured it will be quickly adopted. There
has been a marked increase in the use of these streams by malicious
hackers wanting to store their files once they have compromised a
computer. Not only that, it has also been seen that viruses and
other types of malware are being placed there as well. The crux of
the matter is that these streams will not be revealed using normal
viewing methods, whether via a command prompt or using the Windows
Explorer.
How are these statements corroborated? After an incident has occurred and a computer has been compromised, forensic investigators may be involved. It is based on these findings that the upsurge in the use of alternate data streams has been noted. Even though a corporate entity is well protected, not all anti-virus products in their default configuration will pick up alternate data streams. Most anti-virus products now do find these streams, but only with changes made to the default configuration." So, these resource forks can be added to any file or directory in a NTFS system by appending ":" followed by the stream name to the file or directory's name. Valid examples are:
C:\Windows:StreamName.exe Windows uses this feature to store information about some files. For instance, files downloaded from the internet are added a stream named :Zone.Identifier. This stream is in fact an INI file which has the ID of the zone from which the file was transfered. This stream is what makes the Windows shell display the dialog "Are you sure you want to open this file? Source:Downloaded from the internet". If you delete this stream, the dialog won't be shown again. The stream files are not displayed by the windows explorer, which is why you need a dedicated tool like the UVK's stream manager to display them, and delete the eventually dangerous ones. Deleting a stream doesn't delete the file or folder it's associated with. ADS don't change the size of the file or folder they are forked to, which makes it even more dificult to detect using native tools Starting a scan for streams:
If you un-check both options, all the streams found will be displayed.
Analyzing the streams:
Deleting or exporting the streams:
Other options:
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