| Explanation & Hint:
According to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) guidelines for incident handling, such as those outlined in RFC 3227 “Guidelines for Evidence Collection and Archiving,” the order of volatility is typically from most volatile to least volatile. This is important because volatile data can be lost in the course of system shutdown or during the collection process.
Here is the order of volatility for the provided items, from most to least volatile:
- Memory registers, caches: These are the most volatile types of data, as they are lost when power is turned off or changes rapidly.
- Routing table, ARP cache, process table, kernel statistics, RAM: This data is still very volatile and resides in memory, but it can last slightly longer than CPU registers and caches during a forensic capture.
- Temporary file systems: These systems can include swap files and other temporary storage that may be used by the operating system and can change or be lost upon reboot.
- Remote logging and monitoring data: This data is typically stored on other systems and is less volatile than local system data, but can still be subject to change as new logs are recorded.
- Physical interconnections and topologies: This refers to the layout of the network, which can be more stable over time but might change as network components are added, removed, or reconfigured.
- Archival media, tape or other backups: Such media are designed to be less volatile and are used for long-term storage, but they can still be subject to degradation or overwriting with new data.
- Non-volatile media, fixed and removable: This is the least volatile form of data, as it includes hard drives, SSDs, and other forms of permanent storage that retain data even when the device is turned off.
When collecting evidence, it’s crucial to capture data starting from the most volatile to the least volatile to minimize the amount of data lost during the process. |
