This key stores the contents of the product and device ID values of any USB devices that have ever been connected to the system.Īttached Hardware List − ( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM|MountedDevices.) (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\controlset001\Enum\USBSTOR.) In this above figure, you can see the user has opened cmd, Notepad, MSPaint etc. It contains with the information provided from the RunMRU key, an examiner can gain better understanding fo the user they are investigating and the application that is being used. You can track his activity through inspecting the registry as follows − Then how can you determine, what exactly he would have done to your computer. Suppose your computer lies in the hand of a malicious person without your consent. HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG−contains the hardware profile the system uses at startup. HKEY_USERS− contains all the actively loaded user profile for that system
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE−contains a vast configuration information for the system, including hardware settings and software settings. HKEY_CURRENT_USER − loaded user profile for the currently logged-on-user. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT hive contains configuration information relating to which application is used to open various files on the system. When the administrator or Forensics expects opens Regedit.exe, he sees a tree-like structure with five root folders, or “hives”. So, various settings within these files determined what programs were loaded and how the system looked and responded to user input, a central hierarchical database that maintains configuration settings for the application, hardware devices, and users. The system was largely managed by several files-specifically, autoexec.bat, config.sys, win.ini (on windows) and system.ini.
Today most administrators and forensic analysts, the registry probably looks like the entrance to a dark. Hence, this article serves the purpose is to provide you with a depth understanding of the Registry and Wealth of information it holds.
The Windows Registry also holds information regarding recently accessed files and considerable information about user activities, besides configuration information.