Note: See the new version of Ancillary.
1. Abstract
Ancillary was born as a personal tool used to solve forensic challenges. Eventually it was improving and I realized that people were asking me for the program. Seeing that it was a useful tool, I decided to share it with the community and finally I decided to publish it.
The program only process uncompressed files. If you suspect that the file is compressed or encrypted first solve this trouble and then process with Ancillary.
2. Basic manual
There are two modes for process files, automatic and manual.
In AUTO mode we only have to load the file to process and select «smart recovery» or «I’m hungry». The smart recovery option loses less time processing the file because it associates the headers and tails automatically. The «I’m hungry» option retrieves all the possible files combining all headers with all tails. This latter mode recovers some trash or unreadable files.
In MANUAL mode, the program retrieves all the headers and tails that found in the file and collets the offsets in two lists that we can combine as we like even deleting and adding offsets.
AUTO mode example
Open or drag and drop the file to process.
Analize the file.
Select the type of file to recover.
Select one option.
Push «Carving current file» button and wait finalize the process.
Finally show the recovered files at output folder clicking the indicated button.
MANUAL mode example
Open or drag and drop the file to process and change to manual mode.
Select the type of file what you want to recover and push «Carving current file».
Select the header and the tail and push «View selected offsets resultant file». The resultant file should be opened.
3. Screenshots
4. List of headers and tails
Ancillary at present works with 15 type of files like JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, RAR, ZIP, DOCX, RTF, PDF, ODS, ODT, ODB, ODG, ODF and ODP.
- JPEG
- Header: FFD8
- Tail: FFD9
- GIF87a
- Header: 47 49 46 38 37 61
- Tail: 00 3B
- GIF89a
- Header: 47 49 46 38 39 61
- Tail: 00 3B
- BMP
- Header: 42 4D
- Tail: Don’t have
- PNG
- Header: 89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A
- Footer: 49 45 4E 44 AE 42 60 82
- DOCX
- Header 50 4B 03 04 14 00 06 00
- Tail: 50 4B 05 06 (PK..) followed by 18 additional bytes at the end of the file.
- PDF
- Header: 25 50 44 46 PDF
- Tails: 0A 25 25 45 4F 46 (.%%EOF) or 0A 25 25 45 4F 46 0A (.%%EOF.) or 0D 0A 25 25 45 4F 46 0D 0A (..%%EOF..) or 0D 25 25 45 4F 46 0D (.%%EOF.)
- ZIP
- Header: 50 4B 03 04
- Tail: 50 4B 05 06 (PK..) followed by 18 additional bytes at the end of the file.
- RAR
- Header: 52 61 72 21 1A 07 00
- Tail: C4 3D 7B 00 40 07 00
- RTF
- Header: 7B 5C 72 74 66 31
- Tail: 5C 70 61 72 20 7D
- ODS
- Header: 50 4B 03 04 14 (PK..) jump +73 (0x49) bytes and 73 70 72 65 (spre)
- Tail: 6D 61 6E 69 66 65 73 74 2E 78 6D 6C 50 4B 05 06 (manifest.xmlPK) followed by 18 additional bytes.
- ODT
- Header: 50 4B 03 04 14 (PK..) jump +73 (0x49) bytes and 74 65 78 64 (text)
- Tail: 6D 61 6E 69 66 65 73 74 2E 78 6D 6C 50 4B 05 06 (manifest.xmlPK) followed by 18 additional bytes.
- ODB
- Header: 50 4B 03 04 14 (PK..) jump +73 (0x49) bytes and 62 61 73 65 (base)
- Tail: 6D 61 6E 69 66 65 73 74 2E 78 6D 6C 50 4B 05 06 (manifest.xmlPK) followed by 18 additional bytes.
- ODG
- Header: 50 4B 03 04 14 (PK..) jump +73 (0x49) bytes and 67 72 61 70 (grap)
- Tail: 6D 61 6E 69 66 65 73 74 2E 78 6D 6C 50 4B 05 06 (manifest.xmlPK) followed by 18 additional bytes.
- ODF
- Header: 50 4B 03 04 14 (PK..) jump +73 (0x49) bytes and 66 6F 72 6D (form)
- Tail: 6D 61 6E 69 66 65 73 74 2E 78 6D 6C 50 4B 05 06 (manifest.xmlPK) followed by 18 additional bytes.
- ODP
- Header: 50 4B 03 04 14 (PK..) jump +73 (0x49) bytes and 70 72 65 73 (pres)
- Tail: 6D 61 6E 69 66 65 73 74 2E 78 6D 6C 50 4B 05 06 (manifest.xmlPK) followed by 18 additional bytes.
5. Bibliography
[2] http://www.garykessler.net/library/file_sigs.html
6. License
At the moment the license is FREEWARE but in the future will be FREE SOFTWARE.
ANCILLARY IS PROVIDED «AS IS», WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
7. Feedback
If you have any question, doubt or suggestion, please mail me to deurus at deurus dot info or deurus82 at gmail dot com.
8. Downloads
This tool is FREE of spyware, viruses, adware and others
