a bit long but this could help in pulling deleted emails if any utility does this when you run it on your PST files....
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Volume 3 Issue 2 Page 6
Once upon a time, the task of extracting information from within the
confines of e-mail was much easier to perform. Remember the days when
simplistic e-mail systems using *.mbx and *.dbx files were more the norm?
Instead, nowadays it is far more common to come across e-mail either stored in a
Microsoft Exchange/Outlook system or buried in encrypted files within a Lotus
Notes setup.
How does a modern cyber investigator cope? This two-part article will provide
you some methodologies to follow in either environment. In this issue, we’ll
focus our attention on a little trick for recovering e-mail “removed” from the
deleted bin inside Outlook.
How many times have you had to explain to someone that once the “deleted items
bin” in Outlook has been emptied that the files are gone forever? Well, there
actually is a way to recover such files.
What’s the trick? Just intentionally corrupt the mail storage area and then utilize
a common repair tool to fix what you corrupted. I have found this trick to work
rather well.
First, a little background information about Outlook so we can be sure we all
begin this procedure on the same page. It is important to know that Outlook uses
*.pst files to hold information stores. (These *.pst files are also sometimes
referred to as “personal folders”.) Such files are usually present either on the
local systems or the Exchange server itself.
Now just follow these seven steps:
Purposely corrupting the mail storage area and then using a common repair tool to fix the file
will allow you to recover the deleted emails.
Techie Tips: Mining Clues from Email (Part 1 of 2)
Contributed by Randall Shane,
Certified Fraud Examiner and PhD candidate, Palm Coast, Florida (rshane@ureach.com)
Member of Northeast Chapter
Step Process
1 Identify the *.pst file. (Don’t forget to work only on a copy of the original
storage media; keep the original version of the data safe and untouched.)
2 Open the *.pst file with a hexadecimal editor. There are many hex editors
out there. I use a program called Binary Editor (“bed”) in a Linux
environment, but AXE is an excellent freeware tool for Windows. Check
the CNET.com downloads section if you need one of these. (Note that this
article is not intended to promote any specific software or any other product,
I am merely advising you on what I have found useful.)
3 Next, use the space bar to blank out the 7th through 13th positions. How do you
do this? Remember here that you are working in hexadecimal code. This
means your numerical system is “base 16." Hence, the available characters for
each “digit” in a hexadecimal format can run from “0" through “9" and then
“a” through “f”. (After all, that is how you get 16 different characters.) It also
means you are not simply blanking out 7 different positions (counting from 7
through 13 in decimal format), but since you’re in hexadecimal code you are
actually blanking out 13 positions. So the positions you will be blanking out
when you use the space bar for “positions 7 through 13" will be: 00007, 00008,
00009, 0000a, 0000b, 0000c, 0000d, 0000e, 0000f, 00010, 00011, 00012 and
00013. One more thing to remember when you do this. Characters displayed
hexadecimally are always visually represented on the computer screen by a
two-digit code, so each time you hit the space bar, the code “20" will appear.
This is normal and is exactly what you should see when you perform this step.
4 Save the now modified *.pst file. Congratulations, you have just corrupted
your e-mail!
5 Common in virtually every version of Microsoft Office is a group of tools
which are often transparent to the unknowing typical user of the application.
One such tool is an inbox repair program called “SCANPST.exe”. In my
system, it was located in the directory: C:\ProgramFiles\CommonFiles\System
\Mapi\1033\NT\SCANPST.EXE. You can always take the easy way out in
locating the program by conducting a simple search of your version of MS
Office.
6 Using the repair tool called SCANPST.exe will do the following:
a) Scan the now-corrupted *.pst file
Prompt you to make a *.bak backup file
c) Repair the file
d) Create a log file
e) Remake the *.pst file
7 Now open the new *.pst file in Outlook and the recently-deleted messages will
be visible in the deleted items folder.
Voilá! You’ve just pulled a rabbit out of the hat! In the next newsletter, we’ll tackle the more difficult
problem of recovering encrypted data from Lotus Notes
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Prompt you to make a *.bak backup file