Aralez is a flexible triage collection tool designed for Windows environments. It is purpose-built to assist digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) professionals by automating the collection of critical system artifacts, logs, and metadata from target systems. By enabling streamlined data gathering, Aralez reduces the time and effort required for triage during incident response scenarios.
Key Features #
- Automated Data Collection
– Collects a wide range of system information, including file metadata, NTFS attributes, process details, and network activity, with minimal user intervention. - Configurable Workflows
– Supports fully customizable workflows through the YAML configuration file, allowing users to specify collection tasks, target directories, and additional parameters. - Cross-Platform Compatibility
– Designed primarily for Windows, with cross-compilation support from Linux for flexible deployment scenarios. - Embedded Configuration Management
– Enables embedding configuration files directly into the executable, simplifying deployment without relying on external configuration files. - Compression and Packaging
– Automatically compresses collected data into ZIP archives, ensuring efficient storage and transfer. - Security and Encryption
– Supports encrypted output to safeguard sensitive and malicious data during transit or storage. - Debug Mode
– Provides detailed logs and verbose output for troubleshooting and advanced monitoring.
Core Objectives #
Aralez is designed to address the following critical objectives in incident response and forensic workflows:
- Rapid Artifact Collection
– Quickly gathers relevant data to help responders identify potential threats or understand the impact of an incident. - Scalability
– Capable of handling both small-scale and enterprise-level environments by parallelizing tasks and optimizing workflows. - Reliability
– Ensures consistent performance across supported Windows versions, including legacy systems like Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. - Ease of Use
– Simplifies deployment with a straightforward command-line interface and flexible configuration options.
Features Supporting the Purpose and Scope #
Customizable Configuration:
- YAML-based configurations allow granular control over tasks, directories, file types, and execution priorities.
Built-in Encryption:
- Protects sensitive and malicious files with AES-GCM encryption using a configurable password.
Dynamic Path Support:
- Leverages environment variables for flexible and system-agnostic artifact collection.
Task Management:
- Prioritizes tasks to ensure critical operations are executed first, while non-essential tasks can be disabled.
Cross-Drive Compatibility:
- Targets specific drives or collects artifacts across all available drives, including removable media.
Considerations #
While Aralez is a powerful triage tool, it is not intended to:
- Perform detailed data analysis or processing (it focuses on collection and execution).
- Replace full-fledged forensic tools or incident response platforms (it complements them by streamlining the triage process).
- Work as a live detection tool (it collects data for offline analysis).