Final answer:
Network artifact plugins in Volatility help forensic analysts extract network-related information such as connections, sockets, and ports from memory dumps for incident response and malware analysis.
Step-by-step explanation:
Network artifact plugins in Volatility are designed for forensic analysts to investigate volatile memory. These plugins can extract network-related information from memory dumps to aid in the analysis of a system's activities before it is shut down or compromised. Volatility is an open-source memory forensics framework for incident response and malware analysis. Some of the network artifact plugins include:
- Conscan: Scans for network connections in memory dumps.
- sockets: Lists open sockets and provides information about the associated processes.
- sockscan: Scans for and lists socket objects in the memory dump.
Using these plugins, analysts can uncover valuable information such as remote connections, open ports, and the state of network sockets at the time the memory snapshot was taken.