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GCFA · Question #67

You work as a Network Security Analyzer. You got a suspicious email while working on a forensic project. Now, you want to know the IP address of the sender so that you can analyze various information

The correct answer is C. 216.168.54.25. In email header forensics, the originating sender's IP address is identified by reading the bottom-most 'Received: from' header, which represents the first hop added by the receiving mail server closest to the sender.

Advanced Incident Response & Digital Forensics Fundamentals

Question

You work as a Network Security Analyzer. You got a suspicious email while working on a forensic project. Now, you want to know the IP address of the sender so that you can analyze various information such as the actual location, domain information, operating system being used, contact information, etc. of the email sender with the help of various tools and resources. You also want to check whether this email is fake or real. You know that analysis of email headers is a good starting point in such cases. The email header of the suspicious email is given below:

What is the IP address of the sender of this email?

Exhibit

GCFA question #67 exhibit

Options

  • A172.16.10.90
  • B209.191.91.180
  • C216.168.54.25
  • D141.1.1.1

How the community answered

(68 responses)
  • A
    18% (12)
  • B
    7% (5)
  • C
    71% (48)
  • D
    4% (3)

Why each option

In email header forensics, the originating sender's IP address is identified by reading the bottom-most 'Received: from' header, which represents the first hop added by the receiving mail server closest to the sender.

A172.16.10.90

172.16.10.90 is a private RFC 1918 address that would represent an internal network host rather than an externally routable sender IP visible in an internet email header.

B209.191.91.180

209.191.91.180 is likely the IP of an intermediate relay server or mail infrastructure node added to the header at a later hop, not the originating sender.

C216.168.54.25Correct

216.168.54.25 is identified as the sender's IP because email headers are stacked chronologically with the oldest entry at the bottom, and the first 'Received: from' entry appended by the initial receiving server contains the IP of the actual sending client or mail server. Analysts trace the bottom-most untrusted 'Received' header to identify the true origin, distinguishing it from relay or infrastructure IPs added at later hops.

D141.1.1.1

141.1.1.1 appears in the header as another routing or infrastructure IP added during transit, not as the original sending host's address.

Concept tested: Email header forensics and sender IP tracing

Source: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5321#section-4.4

Topics

#email forensics#email header analysis#IP address tracing#email investigation

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