We have had a couple requests to write a post about readpst which is included in the default path of Backtrack 5 and also located in the Backtrack menu underneath Forensics/Forensics Analysis Tools. The readpst application will read PST files which are also known as Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders and convert them to mbox, MH, or KMail formats. There are various other switches that can be used to output each email into a separate file, include attachments, modify contact formats, be recursive, etc. I will explain basic functionality below along with a couple of the formats and various switches.

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The bulk_extractor tool is one of the tools on Backtrack that a single article is not going to do it a lot of justice but hopefully after reading the below you will be able to see the benefits and understand basic usage of this amazing tool. The bulk_extractor actually reminds me of various tools such as Power Grep for Windows that can be used in penetration tests to locate private data worth being called out in a deliverable. By no means will the below be a complete howto for the bulk_extractor but again it will attempt to shed some light on its purpose and some easy ways it can be used.

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