David Litchfield: Database Forensics

Since the state of California passed the Database Security Breach Notification Act (SB 1386) in 2003 another 34 states have passed similar legislation with more set to follow.

In January 2007 TJX announced they had suffered a database security breach with 45.6 million credits card details stolen - the largest known breach so far.

In 2006 there were 335 publicized breaches in the U.S.; in 2005 there were 116 publicized breaches; between 1st January and March 31st of 2007, a 90 day period, there have been 85 breaches publicized.

There are 0 (zero) database-specific forensic analysis and incident response tools, commercial or free, available to computer crime investigators. Indeed, until very recently, there was pretty much no useful information out that could help.

By delving into the guts of an Oracle database's data files and redo logs, this talk will examine where the evidence can be found in the event of a database compromise and show how to extract this information to show who did what, when. The presentation will begin with a demonstration of a complete compromise via a SQL injection attack in an Oracle web application server and then performing an autopsy. The talk will finish by introducing an open source tool called the Forensic Examiner's Database Scalpel (F.E.D.S.).