A token-by-token walkthrough of BinXML — the binary XML encoding inside .evtx records. Names, hashes, templates, the substitution array, nested fragments, and the edge cases that break parsers.
A field-by-field reference for the Windows .evtx format — file header, ELFCHNK chunk header, event record, the full BinXML token and value-type tables, and a worked decode from raw bytes to rendered XML.
How attackers clear, truncate and timestomp Windows event logs — and the byte-level tells that survive: 1102/104 clearing events, record-ID gaps, chunk CRC mismatches, dirty chunks, and records carvable from slack and unallocated space.
A working tour of the EVTX binary format: file header, ELFCHNK chunks, BinXML templates, substitution arrays, and why parsing this thing is harder than it looks.