FastIR Collector is designed to be easy-to-use. A simple double-click is enough to launch the extraction. The default profile uses the “fast” configuration, containing all the fastest packages for the decision making. The “fast” configuration includes the following packages:

• registry ;
• memory ;
• evt ;
• fs ;
• health.

Once executed, a folder is created in the path where the collector is located and it is filled with the collector’s results. The “dump” and “filecatcher” packages are not included in the default configuration. It is required to explicitly add them in the configuration in order to execute these packages. Beware however, since the use of those packages are more time consuming and may take time before finishing. FastIR Collector is configurable with the use of configuration files called “profiles”. It is possible to individually specify which package should be used and many more options to fine-tune the extraction. The use of different profiles can be specified using the command line options: FastIR.exe --profile <profile.conf>

A profile file is composed of many sections with options (between brackets) and individual options.

[profiles]

packages=fast

Here, profiles is a section, packages is an option and its value is “fast” The different sections of options are: profiles, dump, output, filecatcher, modules, pe, yara.

The profile block is composed of a single option: packages.

The packages option

The packages options allows to specify which packages should be executed by FastIR Collector. The different available packages are listed below:

• registry: registry extracting package ;
• memory: in-memory processes extracting package ;
• evt: log files extracting package ;
• fs: filesystem extracting package ;
• health: WMI based extracting package, several different kinds of information are extracted here ;
• dump: classic forensic artifacts extracting package ;
• filecatcher: file extracting package, based on several given rules.

The special package “fast” embeds the registry, memory, evt, fs and health packages. It is also possible to manually specify which package should be executed, by separating each package with commas.

Example: packages=registry,evt,health

If the “dump” or “filecatcher” or “Registry” packages are specified, it is required to define additional option sections, respectively “The dump section” and “The filecatcher section”.

The dump section is composed of 2 options, dump and mft_export.

The dump option

It is the most important option in the block. The analyst is able to specify which type of dump should be produced. The different kinds of dump are listed below:

• mft: Master File Table of the NTFS filesystem ;
• mbr: Master Boot Record ;
• ram: RAM of the system ;
• dd: Whole disks.
• registry: Hive files in raw NTUSER.DAT, all files in %WINDIR%/System32/Config

Beware, the dump of disks should be done on a larger external support and can be time consuming. It is possible to specify multiple options by separating them with commas.

Example: dump=mft,mbr,ram

The mft_export option

This option is only used when the MFT dump option is activated. It can specify the collector’s behavior, either by dumping the whole raw MFT file, or by computing the MFT contents and outputting them in a CSV file. The possible values are False, to dump only the raw MFT file, or True, to compute the contents of the MFT and generate a CSV output or JSON output.

The “extension” section is composed of 1 option:

• random

random option

random is a boolean 'True' or 'False' to randomize the extensions of results files to bypass encryption by extension of ransomware.

The “registry” section is composed of 3 options:

• custom_registry_keys,
• registry_recursive,
• get_autoruns.

custom_registry_keys and registry_recursive

The “custom_registry_keys“ option is the path of registry to dump

Example custom_registry_keys=HKCU\SOFTWARE\Locky

The 'registry_recursive' is a boolean 'True' or 'False' if the dump of custom registry is recursive or not.

get_autoruns

the get_autoruns option is a boolean 'True' or 'False' to catch files recorded in autoruns registry

The “output” section is composed of 6 options: type, destination, dir, share, share_login and share_password.

The type option

Specifies which type of output should be generated by the collector, either csv or json.

The destination option

by default the destination is 'local' to record the results in files.

Example destination=local

The dir option

Specifies in which folder the results should be stored. By default, the folder is created in the same path as the one where FastIR Collector is executed. It is possible to specify absolute path (e.g. “C:\output_folder”) to modify this behavior. The share option also modifies this behavior, by making FastIR Collector create the folder on the specified remote share.

The share option

Specifies a remote network share to store the results. The folder specified in the dir option will be created on the network share.

The share_login and share_password options

This option is only used if the share option is specified. FastIR Collector can use the specified information to connect to the remote network share if it is protected by credentials. Since those information are stored in clear text in the file, it is of utmost importance to appropriately protect this profile.

The filecatcher section is composed of 10 options: path, recursively, mime_filter, mime_zip, compare, size_min, size_max, ext_file, zip_ext_file and zip.

The path option

Specifies where FastIR Collector will execute the filecatcher and which file depth should be used. It is possible to specify environment variables such as %USERPROFILE, %PUBLIC%, etc. In order to specify multiple folders to search in, values should be comma-separated.

Example: path=%USERPROFILE%|*,%PUBLIC%|2,C:\tmp|*

The recursively option

This option is only used if environment variables that are related to the OS users are specified in the path option. Currently supported environment variables are: TEMP, USERPROFILE, APPDATA, LOCALAPPDATA, TMP.

Possible values are either True, so that the filecatcher searches through all users, or False, where the filecatcher will only search inside the folders of the user currently running FastIR Collector.

The mime_filter and mime_zip options

Defines MIME filters used by the filecatcher. The mime_filter option specifies MIME filters. The absolute path of files corresponding to the specified MIME filters are logged in the output text file. The mime_zip option is similar, files that match the specified MIME filters are instead copied inside an output ZIP archive. For both options, values should be semicolon-separated “magic” rules. The wildcard character “*” is supported and tells FastIR Collector to capture every files.

The ext_file and zip_ext_file options

Specifies the files extensions the filecatcher should match. The ext_file option specifies which file extensions should be retrieved. The filecatcher logs the absolute path of all files with matching extensions in the output text file.

The zip_ext_file is similar, files with matching extensions are instead copied inside an output ZIP archive. For both options, values are comma-separated files extensions. The wildcard character “*” is also supported and tells FastIR Collector to capture all files with matching extensions. It is also possible to specify the string “|EMPTY|” in order to collect files with no extension.

The compare option

Specifies which of AND or OR logical operand should be used between the previously described options. The compared options are the mime_filter/ext_file and mime_zip/zip_ext_file options. When the compare option is set to AND, FastIR Collector will only collect files satisfying both conditions. When the compare option is set to OR, FastIR Collector will only collect files satisfying either of the 2 options.

The size_min and size_max options

Specifies the minimum and maximum size of the files to be retrieved. Sizes should end with one of the 3 following letters: k (kilo), M (mega) or G (giga).

The zip option

Specifies if FastIR Collector should generate or not a ZIP archive containing all files matching the mime_zip and zip_ext_file options. Possible values are True, to generate a ZIP archive, or False, to not generate a ZIP archive.

Specifies additional option section that will be loaded by the filecatcher. Users should not modify this section.

The pe section is composed of 4 options:

• pe_mime_type,
• filtered_certificates,
• cert_filtered_issuer,
• cert_filtered_subject.

This section is an additional filter for the filecatcher package.

The pe_mime_type option

Specifies the MIME types on which the certificate should be checked. Default parameters match Windows PE files and should not be changed unless the analyst really knows what he is doing.

The filtered_certificates option

Specifies if certificated based filtering should be applied. Possible values are True, to enable certificate filtering, or False, to disable certificate filtering.

The cert_filtered_issuer option

Filters files (mainly executables) depending on the certification authority. Values are certification authorities names separated by pipes (“|”).

The cert_filtered_subject option

Filters executables depending on the certificate subject. Values are certification subjects separated by pipes (“|”).

The yara section is composed of 2 options:

• filtered_yara
• dir_rules.

This section is an additional filter for the filecatcher package.

The filtered_yara option

Enables or disables yara rules filtering. Possible values are True, to enable yara filtering, or False, to disable it.

The dir_rules option

Specifies the folder containing all the yara rules. It is possible to specify absolute file paths. All “.yar” files located in the folder are taken into account. It is not recursive and does not take into account other yara files in sub-directories, so all yara rules files should be located on the first level of the specified folder. Only one folder should be specified.