System Resource Usage Monitor (SRUM)

<SYSTEMROOT>\System32\SRU\SRUDB.dat

Overview

Introduced in Windows 8, the System Resource Usage Monitor (SRUM) is a feature that records numerous metrics of system activities, with a limited subset of the available information displayed within the Windows Task Manager (“App history” tab).

The information is stored in the SRUM ESE database SRUDB.dat, with historical data for the last 30 to 60 days only.

Information of interest

Entries are not associated with their timestamp of occurrence but with the timestamp of insertion in the SRUM database. As entries are only written to the SRUM database every hour, timestamps are thus precise to the hour (with multiple entries usually sharing the same insertion timestamp).

Among the various information stored, the following two tables hold the most commonly valuable data for forensics investigations:

Application Resource Usage table (GUID {D10CA2FE-6FCF-4F6D-848E-B2E99266FA89}), that tracks programs execution. For each entry in the Application Resource Usage table (SrumECmd’s AppResourceUseInfo output), the following information may be recorded:
- Timestamp of the SRUM entry creation.
- Full path of the executable or application information / description for built-in components.
- User SID of the user executing the process.
- Metrics on CPU usage (CPU time in foreground and background).
- Metrics on I/O operations (foreground / background number of read / write operations and bytes read / written).
App Timeline Provider table (GUID {5C8CF1C7-7257-4F13-B223-970EF5939312}), that also tracks programs execution. For each entry in the Application Resource Usage table (SrumECmd’s AppTimelineProvider output), the following information may be recorded:
- Timestamp of the SRUM entry creation.
- Name of the executable and description for built-in components.
- Timestamp of compilation of the executable.
- User SID of the user executing the process.
- Timestamp of seemingly approximate end of execution.
- Total duration of execution (in milliseconds).
Network Data Usage table (GUID {973F5D5C-1D90-4944-BE8E-24B94231A174}), that tracks programs execution and network usage of the executed programs. For each entry in the Network Data Usage table (SrumECmd’s NetworkUsages output), the following information may be recorded:
- Timestamp of the SRUM entry creation.
- Full path of the executable or application information / description for built-in components.
- Metrics on network data usage (bytes sent and receive on a given network interface).

Some of the information recorded in the SRUM database be viewed using the Windows Task Manager (“App history” tab).

Tool(s)

Repairing the SRUDB.dat database

As the copied SRUM database will likely not be in a “clean state”, the database will have to be repaired. This can be accomplished using the esentutl utility. It is recommended to make a copy of the SRU directory before repairing the database.

# The following commands should be executed in the directory containing the UAL database files.

esentutl.exe /r sru /i

esentutl.exe /p SRUDB.dat

SrumECmd

The SrumECmd utility (KAPE SrumECmd module) can parse and extract information from the SRUDB.dat database, and correlates information from the SOFTWARE registry hive.

# Parses the specified SRUM database, using the optionally provided SOFTWARE registry hive.
SrumECmd.exe -f <SRUDB.dat | SRUM_DB_FILE> [-r <SOFTWARE>] --csv <OUTPUT_DIRECTORY>

# Recursively look for SRUDB.dat and SOFTWARE files in the specified directory.
SrumECmd.exe -d <DIRECTORY> --csv <OUTPUT_DIRECTORY>

The PowerShell_SrumECmd_SRUM-RepairAndParse KAPE module, leveraging the PowerShell script SRUM-Repair.ps1 can be used to automate the repairing and parsing process (with SrumECmd).

References

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