Registry - Devices and USB activity

Overview

The registry hold numerous information on currently and previously plugged devices, such as USB devices. The information is stored across a number of registry keys.

Given a known variable about a device as input (such as the device serial number or vendor and product names for example), other identifiers can be retrieved from the registry: serial number, vendor ID, product ID, device id (vendor and product names), instance ID, device interface class, associated volume friendly name and volume letter, etc.

The first and last plugged-in timestamps, and last unplugged timestamp (for Windows 7 / 8 and later) of a device are also stored in the registry (Enum\USB and Enum\USBSTOR registry keys).

The terminology and more details on the various identifiers are available in the Windows devices terminology page.

Enum\USB

The Enum\USB registry key contains system-wide information about the currently or previously connected USB devices.

Each USB device is associated with a dedicated subkey under the Enum\USB key. This subkey is named after the device vendor ID (VID) and product ID (PID) of the device. For example: VID_1B1C&PID_4242.

FUnderneath the VID / PID subkey, another subkey is named after the instance ID of the device (referencing either the device’s serial number or location information).

This subkey references in turn information and parameters for the USB device as values and under the Properties and Device Parameters subkeys, notably:

• The ClassGUID key value references the device interface class GUID of the device.

• The ContainerID key value references the container ID of the device.

• The Properties\{83da6326-97a6-4088-9453-a1923f573b29} subkey notably references three child subkeys of interest, each containing a timestamp value:

  • 0064 (starting from Windows 7): timestamp of when the device was first plugged-in / installed.

  • 0066 (starting from Windows 8): timestamp of when the device was last connected.

  • 0067 (starting from Windows 8): timestamp of when the device was last removed.

Enum\USBSTOR

The Enum\USBSTOR registry key contains system-wide information about the currently or previously connected USB devices that are related to storage.

Each USB device is associated with a dedicated subkey under the Enum\USBSTOR key. This subkey is named after the device device ID or hardware ID of the device, which references the vendor and product names. Example: Disk&Ven_SanDisk&Prod_Extreme&Rev_0001.

Underneath the device ID subkey, another subkey is named after the instance ID of the device (referencing either the device’s serial number or location information).

This subkey in turn references:

• The same information as the Enum\USB key.

• A volume id for one of the device volume in the DiskId key value under the Device Parameters\Partmgr.

Enum\SWD\WPDBUSENUM

The Enum\SWD\WPDBUSENUM registry key contains system-wide information about the currently or previously connected USB devices.

Each device is associated with a dedicated subkey under the WPDBUSENUM key.

This key is named with a string containing either:

• The device’s device instance ID (that includes the device’s vendor and product names and serial number) and device interface class GUID. Example: SWD#WPDBUSENUM#_??_USBSTOR#DISK&VEN_SAMSUNG&PROD_TYPE-C&REV_1100#0376022080001660&0#{53F56307-B6BF-11D0-94F2-00A0C91EFB8B}.

• The volume id. Example: SWD#WPDBUSENUM#{44B06C95-F0BA-11ED-9802-6C9466A63B90}#000000000C900000.

This subkey references:

• The same information as the Enum\USB key.

• A “friendly name” or display name of the (or one of the) volume associated with the device in the FriendlyName key value.

MountedDevices

The MountedDevices registry key is the persistent database of the Mount manager (component responsible for managing volume names), and contains system-wide information about the currently or previously mounted drives (such as the system drive or USB devices).

Each device is associated with a separate binary value, composed of:

• The device volume GUID (as the key’s value name).

• The device / hardware ID, instance ID, and device interface class GUID in a # separated string (as the key’s value data).

  • The device ID / hardware ID references the vendor and product names.

  • The instance ID contains the device’s serial number or location information.

  • The device interface class represents the type of the device and each class is associated with a unique GUID.

Full example value for an USB key: _??_USBSTOR#Disk&Ven_Kingston&Prod_DataTraveler_3.0&Rev_PMAP#60A44C42568CB041B98902A4&0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

DeviceClasses

Introduced in Windows Vista, the DeviceClasses registry key contains system-wide information about the currently or previously connected plug and play devices (such as storage devices, volumes, network devices, Bluetooth devices, etc.).

Each device class (physical disk, volume, USB device, Bluetooth device, etc.) is referenced by its own subkey. The subkeys are named after the device classes GUID.

For examples:

• The external physical storages of the device would be referenced under the {53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b} GUID subkey.

• The logical volumes on the device would be referenced under the {53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b} GUID subkey.

Under each device classes GUID subkey, the devices of the given type are referenced as their own subkey, whose name is a # separated string composed of the device / hardware ID, instance ID, and device interface class GUID of the device.

Example of a {53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b} subkey (physical storage):
##?#SCSI#Disk&Ven_Samsung&Prod_SSD_870_EVO_2TB#4&cd4f6d&0&040000#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}.

Example of a {53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b} subkey (logical volume):
##?#STORAGE#Volume#{d446d066-ade9-11ed-8679-eae9fe3c14cf}#0000000000100000#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}.

Windows Portable Devices

The Windows Portable Devices registry key contains information on currently or previously attached media and storage devices, notably the device volume(s)’ “friendly name” or display name.

Each device is associated with a dedicated subkey under the Windows Portable Devices\Devices key.

This key is named with a string containing either:

• The device’s device instance ID (that includes the device’s vendor and product names and serial number) and device interface class GUID.

  Example: SWD#WPDBUSENUM#_??_USBSTOR#DISK&VEN_SAMSUNG&PROD_TYPE-C&REV_1100#0376022080001660&0#{53F56307-B6BF-11D0-94F2-00A0C91EFB8B}.

• The volume id.

  Example: SWD#WPDBUSENUM#{44B06C95-F0BA-11ED-9802-6C9466A63B90}#000000000C900000.

This device subkey references in turn, in the FriendlyName value, the “friendly name” or display name of the (or one of the) volume associated with the device.

VolumeInfoCache

The VolumeInfoCache registry key contains information on currently or previously mounted volumes, notably a mapping between drive letters and their last associated volume(s)’s “friendly name” or display name.

Each previously referenced drive letter (A: to Z:, including C:) is associated with a dedicated subkey under the VolumeInfoCache key.

This subkey contains information about the volume last associated with the corresponding drive letter:

• The volume friendly name in the VolumeLabel value.

• The associated drive type in the DriveType value. Both hard disks / SSDs and storage devices (such as USB keys) appear to be associated with the value 3 (on Windows 10).

The last written timestamp of the key is an indicator of when a volume was last associated with a given drive letter.

EMDMgmt

Only available if the system drive is not an SSD, the EMDMgmt registry key is related to the ReadyBoost feature and contains system-wide information about the currently or previously connected USB devices.

Each USB device is associated with a dedicated subkey under the EMDMgmt key. This subkey is named after the device device ID or hardware ID of the device, which references the vendor and product names.

Example: Disk&Ven_SanDisk&Prod_Extreme&Rev_0001.

The device subkey contains:

• The device’s serial number.

• The associated volume serial number.

• Possibly the volume “friendly name” (if the mounted volume has a name).

Example:

Disk&Ven_Best_Buy&Prod_Geek_Squad_U3&Rev_6.15

LastWrite: Sun Jul 17 12:13:25 2011 Z
SN: 0C90195032E36889&0
Vol Name: TEST
VSN: 6403-CD1C

MountPoints2

References

• Orion Investigations - Andrew Smith - Microsoft Windows 10 USB Forensic Artefacts

• SANS - Rob Lee - Computer Forensic Guide To Profiling USB Device Thumbdrives on Win7, Vista, and XP

• 13Cubed - Windows Registry Cheat Sheet

• hecfblog - David Cowen - Daily Blog #67 - Understanding the artifacts DeviceClasses

• Microsoft - Supporting Mount Manager Requests in a Storage Class Driver

• windowsir.blogspot.com - H. Carvey - Plugin: EMDMgmt