Volatility Memory Forensics Framework

Volatility is the world's most widely used memory forensics framework, extracting digital artifacts from RAM captures of Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. Originally developed by Aaron Walters at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California in 2007, it was rewritten as Volatility 3 (2019) by the Volatility Foundation, co-founded by Michael Cohen, Andrew Case, and Jamie Levy. Key features: memory analysis of images acquired via tools like winpmem, LiME, or hardware acquisition. OS support: Windows (XP through Windows 11), Linux (2.6 through 6.x kernels), macOS (10.5 through 14.x) with custom profiles per OS version. Windows plugins: pslist/pstree (processes), psscan (hidden processes), dlllist, handles, netscan (network connections), malfind (code injection), hashdump (password hashes), lsadump, shimcache, amcache, userassist. Linux plugins: bash, check_syscall (rootkit detection), lsmod. macOS plugins: lsof, keychaindump. Layer-based model supporting Intel and ARM address translation. Automagic plugins for automatic profile detection. Symbol tables via ISF (Intermediate Symbol Format) JSON from DWARF/PDB. Output: text, CSV, JSON, dot, html. Python 3 framework with plugin API. Used by law enforcement, military, and enterprise incident response teams worldwide. GPL-2.0.