Investigating Cryptocurrencies: Understanding, Extracting, and Analyzing Blockchain Evidence

303 Pages·2018·17.73 MB·English

by  Nick Furneaux

Investigating Cryptocurrencies
Investigating
Cryptocurrencies
Understanding, Extracting,
and Analyzing Blockchain Evidence
Nick Furneaux
Investigating Cryptocurrencies: Understanding, Extracting, and Analyzing Blockchain Evidence
Published by
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To Claire, Toby, and Loulé
I love you
Nick
About the Author
Nick has been playing and working with computers since his parents gave him
a Sinclair ZX81 when he was 12. By the age of 14, Nick had designed a computer
program to convince his teacher that he had gained access to his bank account.
In the past 20 years, he has provided cyber security, forensics consultancy,
and training to companies and law-enforcement institutions in the UK and
across Europe, the United States, and Asia, and has lectured on the subject to
numerous groups and organisations.
Nick has been specifically involved in the development of data extraction
and digital forensic analysis techniques that work on live, running computers, and
has had the opportunity to work with some of the top security researchers in
the world.
He is currently working with government and corporate teams throughout
Europe in various forms of data acquisition, teaching computer memory analysis
and carrying out cryptocurrency investigations.
Nick is the Managing Director of CSITech Ltd and Director of the online
forensics training company CSILearn Ltd.
Throughout his career, family has always come first. He enjoys spending time
and travelling with his wife and son as well as caring for his daughter who
suffers with a rare genetic condition (https://www.kleefstrasyndrome.org).
In his limited spare time, he enjoys running and sport climbing.
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About the Technical Editor
David S. Hoelzer (MSc) is the Director of Operations for Enclave Forensics,
Inc., the Dean of Faculty for the SANS Technology Institute, and a Fellow with
the SANS Institute. He is well known in the field of cyber security in general
and more specifically in intrusion detection and network monitoring circles as
an international speaker/teacher on information security topics, having devel-
oped a number of both offensive and defensive tools and techniques. For the
past few years, he has specialized in covert communications development and
scalable back-end communications solutions coupled with threat hunting
and counterintelligence. He has more than thirty years of experience in the
information technology field, with more than twenty-five of those years engaged in
information security, both defensively and offensively. He currently resides
in New York.
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Credits
Project Editor Executive Editor
Kathryn Duggan Jim Minatel
Technical Editor Project Coordinator, Cover
David S Hoelzer Brent Savage
Production Editor Proofreader
Athiyappan Lalith Kumar Nancy Bell
Copy Editor Indexer
Kim Cofer Johnna VanHoose Dinse
Production Manager Cover Designer
Katie Wisor Wiley
Manager of Content Enablement Cover Image
and Operations ©allanswart/iStockphoto
Pete Gaughan
Marketing Manager
Christie Hilbrich
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Acknowledgments
Firstly, thank you to my Mum for not just teaching me to read as a child, but to
learn to love reading and writing. One of the reasons I started writing this book
in late 2017 was to take my mind off her finally going to sleep in the July after
showing pancreatic cancer who was boss for four years. She would have been
really happy that I eventually wrote a book, even if she didn’t understand a word
of it! (Although she would have tried and told me it was the best book ever!)
Secondly, my “brother from another mother,” Chris Hadnagy, who suggested
I write this book and has stood tirelessly at my shoulder through the extraor-
dinary challenges of the past few years.
Next, thank you to the team at Wiley. Jim Minatel, I appreciate you giving me
a chance—we need to go watch some racing sometime! And to Kathi Duggan,
for your astonishing levels of patience dealing with my writing style and for
your personal words of kindness over the past months.
Finally, Dave Hoelzer, thank you for being technical editor. Although we have
been friends for years, your direct edits such as “Wrong” and “I don’t know
what you are talking about” were exactly what I needed and have made this
book so much better.
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Contents at a glance
Foreword xxi
Introduction xxiii
Part I Understanding the Technology 1
Chapter 1 What Is a Cryptocurrency? 3
Chapter 2 The Hard Bit 15
Chapter 3 Understanding the Blockchain 39
Chapter 4 Transactions 67
Chapter 5 Mining 87
Chapter 6 Wallets 95
Chapter 7 Contracts and Tokens 109
Part II Carrying Out Investigations 117
Chapter 8 Detecting the Use of Cryptocurrencies 119
Chapter 9 Analysis of Recovered Addresses and Wallets 147
Chapter 10 Following the Money 175
Chapter 11 Visualization Systems 199
Chapter 12 Finding Your Suspect 217
Chapter 13 Sniffing Cryptocurrency Traffic 245
Chapter 14 Seizing Coins 255
Chapter 15 Putting It All Together 267
Index 275
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Contents
Foreword xxi
Introduction xxiii
Part I Understanding the Technology 1
Chapter 1 What Is a Cryptocurrency? 3
A New Concept? 3
Leading Currencies in the Field 8
Is Blockchain Technology Just for Cryptocurrencies? 9
Setting Yourself Up as a Bitcoin User 10
Summary 14
Chapter 2 The Hard Bit 15
Hashing 16
Public/Private Key Encryption 21
RSA Cryptography 23
Elliptic Curve Cryptography 28
Building a Simple Cryptocurrency in the Lab 32
Summary 36
Chapter 3 Understanding the Blockchain 39
The Structure of a Block 40
The Block Header 42
Deconstructing Raw Blocks from Hex 47
Applying This to the Downloaded Hex 51
Number of Transactions 55
Block Height 57
Forks 58
The Ethereum Block 61
Summary 65
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