File Header Examples for Common File Types: A File Carving Reference

📚 Quick Study Guide

• 🔍 File headers, also known as magic numbers, are short sequences of bytes at the beginning of a file.
• 🔑 These bytes identify the file format.
• 🖼️ Different file types (e.g., JPEG, PNG, PDF) have unique header values.
• 🛡️ File carving uses these headers to recover files, even if the file system metadata is corrupted.
• 📑 Common header formats are often represented in hexadecimal notation.
• 💡 Knowing these headers is crucial for forensic analysis and data recovery.

Practice Quiz

1. Which of the following is a common file header for a JPEG image file?
   1. 0xFFD8FFE0
   2. 0x89504E47
   3. 0x504B0304
   4. 0x25504446
2. What file type does the file header `0x89504E47` typically indicate?
   1. GIF
   2. PNG
   3. JPEG
   4. TIFF
3. Which file header is most commonly associated with a ZIP archive?
   1. 0x47494638
   2. 0x504B0304
   3. 0x424D
   4. 0xD0CF11E0
4. The file header `0x25504446` is a signature for which file format?
   1. DOCX
   2. TXT
   3. PDF
   4. RTF
5. What type of file might begin with the header `0x424D`?
   1. Bitmap (BMP) image
   2. MP3 audio file
   3. Executable (EXE) file
   4. HTML document
6. Which file type is commonly identified by the header `0xD0CF11E0`?
   1. Microsoft Office Document
   2. Torrent file
   3. Java Class file
   4. WebM video
7. A file carving tool identifies a sequence of bytes `0x47494638`. What file type is most likely being carved?
   1. JPEG
   2. PNG
   3. GIF
   4. TIFF