What is the primary function of Volatility in digital forensics?

Volatility is a powerful tool used in digital forensics primarily for analyzing volatile memory, or RAM, from live systems. Its main function involves capturing and interpreting the current state of a computer's memory, which contains critical data that may not be saved on the disk. Forensic analysts leverage Volatility to extract useful information such as running processes, open network connections, loaded drivers, and various system artifacts that can provide insight into what the system was doing at the time of capture.

Understanding the contents of volatile memory is crucial because it holds ephemeral data that is lost when a system is powered down. Therefore, Volatility plays a significant role in incident response, malware analysis, and understanding security breaches by allowing investigators to see a snapshot of a system's activity in real time. This capability distinctly sets it apart from tools that focus on other forensic aspects, like data recovery from storage devices or network traffic monitoring.