File Signatures

Reference Site: https://www.garykessler.net/library/file_sigs.html 
File Signature Table


What are file signatures? How do they relate to file carving? How does the size between a file header and footer affect carving? 

According to ("File Signatures", 2020), File Signatures or Magic Numbers are  protocol set of constant numerical and text values used to identify file format thus every file type requires a unique signature in order for an operating system to recognize it, classify it and show it to an end user. 

The object of carving is to identify and extract (carve) the file based on this signature information alone. File carving is a process used in computer forensics to extract data within a block of raw data basing or searching for the magic numbers or file signatures. 

Since File carving  is usually done by examining the header (the first few bytes) and footer (the last few bytes) of a file, larger distance between the footer and header will affect the amount of data recovered during  the process of reconstructing files by scanning the raw bytes of the disk(V. Gubin, 2017). 

File Signatures. (2020). Retrieved 27 May 2020, from http://www.lsoft.net/posts/file-signatures/  

V. Gubin, A. (2017). File carving methods in data recovery. Retrieved 12 May 2020, from https://www.klennet.com/carver/carving-methods.aspx 

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