Mastering Windows Network Forensics and Investigation, 2nd Edition

Determining the Startup Locations

For an application, service, process, or any piece of code to run on a computer, it must somehow be started. The user can start it manually, or some automated process can start it. In the case of intrusions, the intruder usually can’t ask the victim to manually and intentionally start a rogue process, and so the preferred startup method will be an automatic one. On a Windows system, there are literally dozens of known locations and methods of automatically starting a piece of code, most of which are found in the registry.

Social Engineering and Computer Intrusions

While it is true that usually would-be intruders ...