Timestomping

A subject modifies the modified, accessed, created (MAC) file time attributes to hide new files or obscure changes made to existing files to hinder an investigation by removing a file or files from a timeframe scope.

nTimestomp is part of the nTimetools repository, and it provides tools for working with timestamps on files on the Windows operating system. This tool allows for a user to provide arguments for each timestamp, as well as the option to set all timestamps to the same value.

Linux has the built-in command touch that has functionality that allows a user to update the access and modified dates of a file. The command can be run like this:

touch -a -m -d ‘10 February 2001 12:34' <file>

The argument -a refers to the access time, -m refers to the modify time, and -d refers to the date applied to the target file.