Volatility 3 — security analysis and diagnostics

This is a memory forensics framework that analyzes RAM dump files to recover processes, files, and network traces that were running.

Basic Information

What is this software?

Volatility 3 is a forensics framework that analyzes an image dumped from system RAM to extract information remaining in memory at that point. It allows post-mortem recovery of lists of running processes, open files and sockets, login sessions, traces of injected code, and more.

Analysis tasks are performed on a per-plugin basis. By providing symbols matching the OS version, plugins like windows.pslist and linux.pslist can output lists. As Volatility 2 was deprecated in 2025, Volatility 3 is now the standard.

What problems does it solve?

• When you need to confirm processes and network connections at the time of infection during incident response, you can reconstruct the execution state from just a RAM dump.
• When you need traces remaining in memory even after files have been deleted in forensics, you can recover deleted file fragments, command-line arguments, etc.
• When you need to view malware residing in memory without the file system in malware analysis, you can use plugins to check process memory dumps and injection traces.

Key Features

Process List Recovery

Extracts information about processes that were running from memory.

• Use Case: Confirm processes at the time of compromise.
• Result Obtained: Obtain lists of normal and abnormal processes.
• Limitations: Stealthy processes require additional plugins.

Network Connection Recovery

Extracts information about open sockets and connections.

• Use Case: Check traces of connections to C2 servers.
• Result Obtained: Obtain lists of external communication targets and ports.
• Limitations: Information not present in a simple memory dump cannot be retrieved.

DLL/Module Injection Analysis

Detects modules abnormally mapped into a process.

• Use Case: Detect code injection.
• Result Obtained: Identify abnormal memory regions.
• Limitations: Obfuscated injections may require time to interpret.

Plugin Structure

Allows adding and writing OS-specific and purpose-specific plugins.

• Use Case: Special environment analysis requirements.
• Result Obtained: Custom extraction of only the needed evidence.
• Limitations: Symbol (Dwarf·PDB) provision must be done first.

Installation and Execution

Linux (pip)

Install via pip on Python 3.7 or later. There are optional dependencies like pycryptodome for disk image processing.

git clone https://github.com/volatilityfoundation/volatility3.git
cd volatility3
python3 -m pip install -e .

Linux (Direct Execution)

Supports downloading via git and running with python.

python3 vol.py -h
python3 vol.py -f memory.dmp windows.pslist

macOS / Windows

Similarly, obtain the source in a Python environment and run it.

python vol.py -f memory.dmp windows.pslist

Practical Usage Examples

Check Process List

Specify the memory dump with -f and run the windows.pslist (or linux.pslist) plugin.

$ python3 vol.py -f memory.dmp windows.pslist
PID  PPID  Image            Created
  4     0  System           2026-10-18 01:12:03
912   901  nginx            2026-10-18 01:12:07

Check Network Connections

Use the windows.netscan plugin to check open connections and listening ports.

$ python3 vol.py -f memory.dmp windows.netscan
Proto Local Address        Remote Address       State    Owner
TCP   0.0.0.0:443          0.0.0.0:0            LISTEN   nginx
TCP   192.0.2.20:51423     198.51.100.7:443     CLOSE_WAIT python3

Dump Memory Region

Specify a process PID to dump its memory to a file for subsequent analysis.

$ python3 vol.py -f memory.dmp -p 912 windows.memmap --dump
.dumped.912.dmp created (Process 912 memory)

Advantages and Limitations

Advantages

• Free and open source (GPL) — Enables memory analysis without commercial forensic tools.
• Rich plugin ecosystem per OS (Windows, Linux, macOS).
• Performance and plugin organization completed compared to Volatility 2 (current standard).
• Script-based, advantageous for batch analysis of large dumps.

Points to Consider Before Use

• You must obtain the symbol files for the OS you are analyzing for accurate results.
• Obtaining memory dumps (live acquisition) requires separate tools.
• Errors are frequent with plugin/symbol version mismatches, requiring initial setup learning.

Comparison with Similar Software

Official Resources and Further Learning

• Official Website — https://www.volatilityfoundation.org/
• Official Documentation / Knowledge Base — https://github.com/volatilityfoundation/volatility3/wiki
• Official Download — https://github.com/volatilityfoundation/volatility3/releases
• Release Notes — https://volatilityfoundation.org/volatility-timeline
• Source / Development Resources — https://github.com/volatilityfoundation/volatility3

Version and supported environment information is based on data verified on the official site as of 2026-10-18. Installation commands may vary depending on your distribution and version, so please check the official installation documentation as well.

Actual Execution Screenshots

Below is a synthetic example screen created to help understand the usage flow (not actual execution results). The screen is a synthetic example and is not actual execution results.

!Volatility 3 example: Recovering process list and network connections from a memory dump

A server in actual operation.

Source (HTML): https://games.aidebatehub.com/programs/apps/security/volatility.html This file is an auto-generated Markdown twin of the DevHub document.