Decrypting live SSH traffic in virtual environments. (June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: McLaren, Peter; Russell, Gordon; Buchanan, William J.; Tan, Zhiyuan
• Is Part Of: Digital investigation. Volume 29(2019)
• Page Start: 109
• Page End: 117
• Publication Date: 2019-06
• Subjects: Network traffic -- Decryption -- Memory analysis -- IoT -- Android -- VMI -- Secure shell -- SSH -- AES -- Secure file transfer -- Data exfiltration -- Insider attacks; Forensic sciences -- Data processing -- Periodicals; Criminal investigation -- Data processing -- Periodicals; 363.250285
• DOI: 10.1016/j.diin.2019.03.010
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1742-2876

Abstract

Abstract: Decrypting and inspecting encrypted malicious communications may assist crime detection and prevention. Access to client or server memory enables the discovery of artefacts required for decrypting secure communications. This paper develops the MemDecrypt framework to investigate the discovery of encrypted artefacts in memory and applies the methodology to decrypting the secure communications of virtual machines. For Secure Shell, used for secure remote server management, file transfer, and tunnelling inter alia, MemDecrypt experiments rapidly yield AES-encrypted details for a live secure file transfer including remote user credentials, transmitted file name and file contents. Thus, MemDecrypt discovers cryptographic artefacts and quickly decrypts live SSH malicious communications including the detection and interception of data exfiltration of confidential data.