Forensic analysis of office open XML spreadsheets

By: Contributor(s): Publication details: Nairobi Strathmore University 2017Description: xiii,98pSubject(s): LOC classification:
  • QA76.9.O36 2017
Online resources: Summary: Digital Forensics is the science of acquiring, preserving, analysing and presenting digital evidence from computers, digital devices and networks in a manner that is admissible in a court of law to support an investigation. Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, NeoOffice and Google documents spreadsheets and presentations are widely used to store and circulate data and information especially within organisations. They are often rich in information deeply embedded in them that can be retrieved by examining metadata or deleted material still present in the files.OOXML is a standard developed by Microsoft and registered by ECMA (as ECMA-376), and approved by the ISO and IEC (as ISO/IEC 29500:2008) as an open standard for the development of Office documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Documents, spreadsheets and presentations created using this standard consist of zipped file containers, parts and relationships which upon extraction and analysis reveals forensically interesting information. Existing forensic tools have limitations as far as extracting and analysing OOXML spreadsheet metadata is concerned in that most of them can extract only limited and basic metadata.The objective of this research is to carry out forensic analysis of metadata in OOXML spreadsheets by studying limitations of existing forensic tools in extracting and analysing metadata in OOXML spreadsheets and designing and developing a Proof of Concept (PoC) implementation of a forensic tool that supports automated forensic analysis of OOXML spreadsheets with improved visualization, efficiency and advanced reporting functionality. This research adopts a methodology to review OOXML spreadsheet metadata extraction and analysis capabilities of existing forensic tools using sample spreadsheet datasets, carry out system analysis, design and PoC implementation of a forensic tool. In addition, the research carries out manual, functional, and security tests; quality assurance; and validation of the developed Proof of Concept implementation. The developed tool is able to extract and analyse relevant metadata from OOXML spreadsheets and present results in a forensic report.
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Item type Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Thesis Thesis Strathmore University (Main Library) Sorting Bay QA76.9.O36 2017 Not for loan 77107
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Digital Forensics is the science of acquiring, preserving, analysing and presenting digital evidence from computers, digital devices and networks in a manner that is admissible in a court of law to support an investigation. Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, NeoOffice and Google documents spreadsheets and presentations are widely used to store and circulate data and information especially within organisations. They are often rich in information deeply embedded in them that can be retrieved by examining metadata or deleted material still present in the files.OOXML is a standard developed by Microsoft and registered by ECMA (as ECMA-376), and approved by the ISO and IEC (as ISO/IEC 29500:2008) as an open standard for the development of Office documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Documents, spreadsheets and presentations created using this standard consist of zipped file containers, parts and relationships which upon extraction and analysis reveals forensically interesting information. Existing forensic tools have limitations as far as extracting and analysing OOXML spreadsheet metadata is concerned in that most of them can extract only limited and basic metadata.The objective of this research is to carry out forensic analysis of metadata in OOXML spreadsheets by studying limitations of existing forensic tools in extracting and analysing metadata in OOXML spreadsheets and designing and developing a Proof of Concept (PoC) implementation of a forensic tool that supports automated forensic analysis of OOXML spreadsheets with improved visualization, efficiency and advanced reporting functionality. This research adopts a methodology to review OOXML spreadsheet metadata extraction and analysis capabilities of existing forensic tools using sample spreadsheet datasets, carry out system analysis, design and PoC implementation of a forensic tool. In addition, the research carries out manual, functional, and security tests; quality assurance; and validation of the developed Proof of Concept implementation. The developed tool is able to extract and analyse relevant metadata from OOXML spreadsheets and present results in a forensic report.

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