ADF Triage-G2 vs Plaso

ADF Triage-G2 is digital forensic triage software for computer and media exploitation during sensitive site exploitation. ADF describes that work as supporting military and intelligence needs such as counterterrorism, force protection, and national security. Designed for non-technical operators, it uses a two-step process to scan devices, extract material, and analyze intelligence. It can be deployed on a small USB key for field reconnaissance. Rosoka entity extraction and multilingual translation are standard; ADF says its text analytics processes documents in 230+ languages to identify entities and locations in unstructured documents. The software handles evidence from computers, iOS and Android devices, USB devices, storage media, documents, emails, text communications, and digital images. Listed export formats are PDF, VICS, HTML, and CSV. Boot-mode tools do not change disks, according to ADF; live scans avoid changing file timestamps but leave traces, which stealth mode makes harder to locate. Pricing is available on request, with one-year or three-year subscription licenses that include support, maintenance, and upgrades during the term. There is no free plan; a free 30-day evaluation is available to qualified organizations.

Plaso is a Python-based engine for creating timelines used in digital forensic analysis. Its log2timeline tool extracts events from files, directories, storage-media images, or devices and stores them in a Plaso storage file. The psort tool can filter and sort that data and run automatic analysis. Other command-line tools include image_export, pinfo, and psteal. Documented inputs include Windows event logs and registry data, browser histories, SQLite databases, text logs, and cloud audit logs from AWS CloudTrail, Azure Activity, Google Cloud, and Microsoft 365. Plaso can create a CSV timeline from a storage image using psteal with dynamic output; listed formats also include JSON, JSON Lines, KML, TLN, XLSX, OpenSearch, and Timesketch. The framework supports additional parsers, analysis plug-ins, and scripts for forensic tasks. Documented analysis plug-ins include VirusTotal, NSRL server, and hash tagging. Plaso is free, with no commercial plan or usage limits stated. The project recommends packaged releases for general use and a version no older than six months.