The increased use of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin among an increasing user base has opened a new avenue of research in the field of digital forensics ie Bitcoin Forensics. Since the creation of Bitcoin in 2008, cryptocurrencies have begun to make a presence in the world of e-commerce. Cryptography serves as the underlying foundation for Bitcoin, which gives it the benefits of confidentiality, integrity, non repudiation and authentication. Having been designed and built upon the foundation of these four objectives makes Bitcoin an attractive alternative to mainstream currency and provides users with the benefits of payment freedom, security, very low fees, and fewer risks for merchants.But with a pleothra of advantages that it offers,there is a definete side to worry too and thats the money laundering transactions.On an average it is estimated that around 3 lakh bitcoin transactions happen inside a day and its not an easy task any day for a forensic investigator to trace the origins here.This presentation will bring out the technical overview and evolving forensics developments in the domain.

1. By : ANUPAM TIWARI
EMAIL: anupamtiwari@protonmail.com

2. The views expressed in this
presentation are Mere Apne.
Reference to any specific
products, process ,or service do
not constitute or imply
endorsement, recommendation,
or views of Govt
All images used are for illustrative
purposes only & Do not
promote any specific product

5. by Anupam Tiwari

12. Paap se Dharti phati-phati-phati,
Adharm se aasmaan,
Atyachaar se kaanpi Insaaniyat,
Raj kar rahe Haivaan ...
Jinki hogi taqat apoorv,
Jinka hoga nishana abhed,
Joh karenge inka sarvanaash ...
………….woh kehlayenge Tridev

15. Name used by the
unknown person who
designed BITCOIN
and created its
original reference
implementation
SATOSHI
NAKAMOTO
कह ाँ गय ,उसे ढूंढो

17. AS OF 16TH SEPT 2017
1 BITCOIN IS WORTH
3606$
SO 1 BITCOIN IS
2,32,224/-
SOURCE : https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions

18. 2 6 0 4 3 7
SOURCE : https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions

23. ANONYMITY
VS
PSEUDONYMITY
Mark TwainSamuel Clemens
public key addresses similar in function to an
email address, are used to send and receive
Bitcoins and record transactions, as opposed
to personally identifying information.

25. CRYPTOCURRENCY IS AN ATTEMPT
TO BRING BACK A DECENTRALISED
CURRENCY OF PEOPLE, ONE THAT IS NOT
SUBJECT TO INFLATIONARY MOVES BY
A CENTRAL BANK

27. Bitcoin is starting to come
into its own as a Digital
Currency, but the Blockchain
Technology behind it could
prove to be much more
SIGNIFICANT

31. BASICALLY CHUNKS OF INFO
THAT CAN BE USED TO
MATHEMATICAL
GUARANTEE ABOUT MESSAGES

34. Peer-to-
Peer (P2P)
network is
created when
two or
more PCs are
connected &
share
resources
without
going through a
separate
server
computer

35. MERKLE TREE

36. Distributed Ledger is a Consensus of
Replicated, Shared & Synchronized
digital data geographically spread across
multiple sites & countries

37. Type of Distributed Ledger, comprised
of Unchangeable, Digitally
Recorded Data in packages called
BLOCKS
TAMPER EVIDENT LEDGER

39. Linked list data structure, with
each block containing a
hash of the previous block

40. Proof Of Work Is A Piece Of Data
Which Is Difficult To Produce But
Easy For Others To Verify And Which
Satisfies Certain Requirements
Bitcoin Uses
The Hashcash Proof
Of Work System.
PROOF OF WORK

41. Each block is formed by a proof-of-
work algorithms, through which
consensus of this distributed
system could be obtained via the
longest possible chain

43. https://anders.com/blockchain/blockchain.html

44. Thus blockchain provides
the basis for the TRUSTLESS
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM

46. A block is an aggregated set of data
Data is collected and
processed to fit in a block
through a process called
MINING
Each block could be identified using
a Cryptographic Hash

47. Mining is the process
of writing pages
(blocks) of Bitcoin
transactions into the
‗The Bitcoin
Blockchain‘, and
getting rewarded with
newly created bitcoins

48. Block will contain a hash
of the previous block, so
that blocks can form a
chain from the first block
ever (known as the
Genesis Block) to the
formed block

49. FIRST BLOCK : GENESIS

50. Every 10 minutes, all Bitcoin
transactions taking place are bundled
into a block
These blocks linked through a
timestamp signing, form a
chain (blockchain), which goes
back to the first block ever
created (mined)
The time stamping makes it
impossible to alter any part of it
once the network confirms it

51. These rules are inbuilt in the
Bitcoin core software, which
every node in the Bitcoin
network runs
Before a new block is added to the
blockchain, the Bitcoin network
has to reach a consensus on
based on predetermined rules

52. Data in a blockchain is
internally consistent
and immutable
Each block‘s hash is
derived from the
contents of the block
Each block refers to
the previous block‘s hash,
not a sequential number

53. THE LAST BITCOIN
(PROBABLY 21 MILLIONTH COIN)
WILL BE MINED IN THE YEAR
2140

55. Source : Alex Biryuk et al., Deanonymisation of Clients in Bitcoin P2P
Network
Bitcoin network is composed of
PEERS connected to others PEERS
over unencrypted TCP channels
Each peer attempts to
maintain EIGHT outgoing
connections to other peers
These eight peers are called
ENTRY NODES

56. Transaction and Block messages
are propagated in network by being
Relayed through these ENTRY NODES
to other peers
When X sends a transaction advertising
that he is transferring ownership of 1 BTC
to Y, his computer sends an inv message
to its immediate peers, the entry nodes

57. The inv message lets the entry
nodes know that there are
transactions or blocks
Entry nodes relay the data
farther throughout the network by
sending inv to their own peers
Entry nodes request full
transaction by sending
getdata response to X‘s
computer

59. “शरीर में 206 हड्डिय ॊ
है, और सॊविध न में
1670 क नून ... हड्िी
से ऱेकर क नून सब
तोड़त हूॉ….”
SHA तोड़
के दिख ….

62. BITCOIN MINING

64. A user for CONDUCTING
TRANSACTIONS utilizing BITCOIN,
he or she must first DOWNLOAD and
setup a BITCOIN WALLET
BITCOIN WALLET can show the
total BALANCE of all BITCOINS it
CONTROLS and let A USER PAY a
specified AMOUNT

65. WALLET contains a USER‘S
PRIVATE KEY, which ALLOWS
FOR THE SPENDING of the
BITCOINS, which are located in
the BLOCK CHAIN
Once wallet is INSTALLED &
CONFIGURED, an ADDRESS
is GENERATED which is
SIMILAR to an E-MAIL or
PHYSICAL ADDRESS

66. WALLET is basically
the Bitcoin Equivalent
of a Bank account.
Allows to RECEIVE BITCOINS,
them, and then
SEND them to others

67. Connected to the Internet
or is online is said to be HOT
Cold Wallets & Hot Wallets
Cold is considered
most Secure &
suitable for Storing
Large Amounts of
bitcoins
Hot is suitable for
Frequently
Accessed funds
COLD implies it is Offline or
Disconnected from the
Internet

68. Designedto be downloaded
& used on Laptops/PCs
DESKTOPWALLETS
Armory, Multibit, Msigna
and Hive to mention a FEW
Easyto Access.
Available for Different OS
– Windows, Mac OS and Ubuntu.

69. MOBILEWALLETS

70. ONLINEWEBWALLETS

71. PHYSICALWALLETS
Once they are generated, you
print them out on a piece of
paper
Paper Wallets can
Securely hold your BITCOINS
in Cold Storage form for a
long time
Bitaddress.org
or Blockchain.info

72. BitcoinQt is the First ever built
bitcoin CLIENT WALLET
BITCOINCLIENTS
WALLETS
Original bitcoin
wallet used by the
Pioneers of the
currency
COMPUTERS installed with these wallets
FORM PART OF THE CORE
NETWORK & have access to all
transactions on the blockchain

73. HARDWAREWALLETS

76. BITCOIN ARTIFACTS

77. They DON‘T EXIST
ANYWHERE, even
on a hard drive

78. When we say SOMEONE HAS
BITCOINS & you look at a
PARTICULAR BITCOIN ADDRESS,
there are NO DIGITAL BITCOINS held
AGAINST that ADDRESS
BALANCE of any BITCOIN
address ISN‘T HELD at that
ADDRESS; one MUST
RECONSTRUCT it by looking at
the BLOCKCHAIN

79. Everyone on the NETWORK knows about a
TRANSACTION and THE HISTORY
OF A TRANSACTION can be TRACED
BACK to the point where the BITCOINS
were produced

80. Conduct a
SEARCH based
on BLOCK
NUMBER,
ADDRESS,
BLOCK HASH,
TRANSACTION
HASH or
PUBLIC KEY

82. SOURCE : https://blockchain.info/ip-log

86. LOCK FILE
DEBUG.LOG
PEERS.DAT
WALLET.DAT
BITCOIN-QT FOLDER STRUCTURE
DB LOCK FILE
EXTENSIVE LOGGING
FILE
PEER INFORMATION
STORAGE FOR
KEYS,TXN,METADATA
etc

88. BITCOIN-QT FOLDER STRUCTURE

89. BITCOIN-BLOCK FOLDER ANALYSIS

90. BITCOIN-QT FOLDER STRUCTURE
Blocks – This subdirectory contains
blockchain data and contains a
―blk.dat‖ file and a ―blocks/index‖
subdirectory
―blk.dat‖ stores actual Bitcoin
blocks dumped in raw format
The ―blocks/index subdirectory‖ is a
database that contains metadata
about all known blocks

91. Chainstate subdirectory- it is a
database with a compact
representation of all currently unspent
transactions and some metadata about
where the transactions originated
BITCOIN-QT FOLDER STRUCTURE

92. Database subdirectory -
Contains database journaling
files
BITCOIN-QT FOLDER STRUCTURE

93. तकनीकी शब्ि वली
बिटकॉइन

94. Number of
blocks preceding
particular block
on a block chain.
Genesis block has a height of zero
because zero block preceded it.

95. 20-byte hash formatted
using base58check to produce
either a P2PKH or P2SH
Bitcoin address
00000000001F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtM*****

96. How difficult it is to find
a block relative to
the difficulty of finding the easiest
possible block. The easiest
possible block has a proof-of-
work difficulty of 1.
Difficulty is changed every
2016 blocks based on the time
it took to discover 2016
previous blocks.

98. 1.46 × 10^48 possible
Bitcoin Addresses
that gives every
person on Earth
2.05×10^38 Different
Addresses

100. Bitcoin Mixer is an Anonymous
Service, that confuses the trails
of Bitcoin transactions.

105. Private key of the suspect, they can
search for that particular key on the
Blockchain to Trace the purchases
to other potential Suspects.
investigator has the Bitcoin

106. Detecting such attackers is CHALLENGING
any day
Attacking Bitcoin via the Internet
infrastructure using routing attacks
As Bitcoin connections are routed over the
Internet—in clear text and without
integrity checks—any third-party can
eavesdrop, drop, modify, inject, or
delay Bitcoin messages

108. BITCOIN FORENSIC ARTIFACT EXAMINATION
Windows 7 Professional
Multibit
Bitcoin-Qt
Bitminter
Basic USB ASIC Bitcoin
Gateway laptop ML6720
120 GB WD hard drive
(4) USB ASIC Mining
drives
USB powered cooling fan
32 GB USB thumb drive

109. • System Info
• Info about Logged users
• Registry Info
• Remnants of Chats
• Web browsing Activities
• Recent Communications
• Info from Cloud Services
• Decryption Keys for encrypted
volumes mounted
COLLECTION OF BITCOIN ARTIFACTS

110. Utilizing the data from
344
transactions,
Meiklejohn able to
identify the owners of
more than a million
Bitcoin addresses
Sarah Meiklejohn, a Bitcoin focused
Computer Researcher
Extensive Research
in
Bitcoin Blockchain
Found that by looking
blockchain an
investigator can
uncover who owns a
Bitcoin addresses

111. 2015
“In this paper we show that combining TOR and
BITCOIN creates an ATTACK VECTOR for the
stealthy man-in-the-middle attacks. A LOW-
RESOURCE ATTACKER gain FULL
CONTROL of information flows between all users
who chose to use Bitcoin over TOR. In particular the
attacker CAN LINK TOGETHER USER’S
TRANSACTIONS regardless of pseudonyms used”

112. Bitcoin transactions occur via a
Network Connection, an investigator
should seize any Physical Object that
can connect to the Internet in addition
to the hard drive
COLLECTION OF BITCOIN ARTIFACTS

114. Ulbricht
Ross

118. anupamtiwari@protonmail.com
https://about.me/anupam.tiwari