Memory Lane — Reconstructing Attacker TTPs from a Volatility Dump

First Pass

Load the image in Volatility 3 and start with process context:

vol.py -f mem.raw windows.pstree

Suspicious: powershell.exe with parent svchost.exe — that's not normal.

Network Pivot

vol.py -f mem.raw windows.netstat

Active outbound TCP on port 4444 from that PID. Classic reverse shell indicator.

Timeline Reconstruction

1. EventID 4624 — successful logon event 2. Scheduled task created via schtasks in the same session 3. PowerShell executes, contacts C2 via DNS beacon 4. Flag string exfiltrated in DNS query TXT field

Decode the hex in the DNS query and you have the flag.