The problem? The only intact evidence resided on a single, formatted LUN from a dead ESXi host. The LUN was formatted with , a vSphere volume Windows couldn't natively understand.
She double-clicked the log to copy the IP. Suddenly, a command prompt flashed. A script—embedded as an alternate data stream inside the VMFS partition—had executed. It triggered because she mounted writable . The attacker had booby-trapped the file system.
She extracted it. Opened in Notepad.
sudo vmfs-fuse /dev/sdc /mnt/vmfs -o ro The files appeared, untouched. The Windows mount had only corrupted a decoy sector. She copied the log, the network capture, and the hidden wallet private key the attacker had foolishly left behind.
"Hello, Maya. You've mounted VMFS on Windows. Clever. But this isn't a datastore. It's a honeypot. Say goodbye to your evidence." mount vmfs partition windows
A forensic analyst racing to recover evidence from a corrupted SAN discovers that mounting a VMware VMFS partition on Windows isn't just a technical hurdle—it's a gateway to a trap left by a ghost in the machine.
Click Mount .
She opened FTK, added E: as an image source. The software hesitated, then bloomed into life.