FileSigExtractor is a python based tool which extracts the file signatures of all files within a directory and writes the output to a CSV file.

This project is basically another implemention Andrew Rathbun's SigHunter (Written in C#).

FileSigExtractor uses the python-magic library which is python wrapper for the libmagic library. The code here mimics the linux file command but just runs recursively over directories and produces a CSV output.

Required parameters

• -d or --directory - The input directory in which files to be scanned are present.
• -o or --output-dir - The path to which the output CSV files are written.

> python FileSigExtractor.py -d <target directory> -o <csv output directory>

The above example was run in WSL with python3.10 installed. You can run it in Windows too.

• Empty-Files.txt
  • As name suggests, list of empty files within the directory.
• Errors-Encountered.txt
  • Typically observed when running the script in Windows. Windows usually locks certain files which are not readable. Such files are skipped and listed here.
• Large-Files-Ignored.txt
  • Files which are over 512 MB are ignored by the script.
• Matched-Files.csv
  • CSV containing list of files whose file signature was recognized.
• Unknown-Files.csv
  • CSV containing list of file whose signature was unrecognized.

• File Path
  • Absolute path of the file.
• Original Extension
  • Observed file extension.
• File Type
  • Signature recognized by libmagic

Abhiram Kumar

• Twitter - @_abhiramkumar
• LinkedIn - abhiramkumarp