Episode 34 — Windows Investigation: Common Artifacts

When incidents occur, the clues often hide in plain sight across the Windows operating system. This episode guides you through where to look and what to look for when conducting basic investigations. You’ll learn how timestamps, registry hives, and prefetch files reveal patterns of execution, installation, and persistence. We also discuss browser histories, jump lists, and temporary files as evidence sources that confirm user actions and system behavior. These artifacts aren’t random—they form a timeline that investigators use to reconstruct activity and validate hypotheses.Listeners will also discover how built-in tools like Event Viewer, dir /t, and the Windows Timeline feature complement third-party forensic utilities. We explain how volatile data like running processes, network connections, and system logs should be preserved quickly before being overwritten. The episode emphasizes exam-relevant distinctions between volatile and persistent evidence, and how to interpret forensic findings without overreach. By understanding what artifacts reveal and how they relate, you’ll be ready to analyze both test questions and real-world investigations with precision. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

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