350-201 Sample Questions Answers

 Upon receiving an alert that a contractor has downloaded multiple documents from the company’s confidential document management folder, the security manager should report the incident to the incident response team. This team is responsible for investigating the incident, assessing the impact, and determining the appropriate response to the unauthorized access

Automation refers to the configuration of a single process or a small number of related tasks to run without human intervention. Orchestration, on the other hand, involves managing multiple automated tasks to create a dynamic workflow. While automation focuses on making individual tasks more efficient, orchestration looks at the bigger picture to optimize a series of tasks that make up a process

The bash command grep -i “yellow” colors.txt will print all lines from the “colors.txt” file containing the non case-sensitive pattern “Yellow”. The -i option in the grep command is used to ignore case distinctions in both the pattern and the input files, allowing it to match both “Yellow”, “yellow”, “YELLOW”, etc.

When an engineer discovers that payments have been sent to the wrong recipient due to a SaaS tool being down, the first step should be to contact the incident response team to inform them of a potential breach. This allows for an immediate investigation into the incident and the implementation of measures to mitigate any potential damage5.

To prevent future attacks like the one described, where a compromised workstation gained access to sensitive customer data using insecure protocols, the best action is to use VLANs to segregate zones and configure the firewall to allow only required services and secured protocols. This approach ensures that different segments of the network are isolated, reducing the risk of lateral movement by attackers. Additionally, allowing only necessary and secure protocols through the firewall enhances the security posture by minimizing the attack surface.

References:

Network security best practices often recommend the use of VLANs and strict firewall rules as a means to enhance network security and prevent unauthorized access.

Implementing secure communication protocols and services is crucial in protecting sensitive data from being compromised.

In the context of REST API authentication, the process typically involves the REST client first obtaining an access token by providing the necessary credentials, which usually include a password. Once the REST client has the access token, it uses this token to request access to a specific resource on the server. The REST API then validates the provided access token to ensure it is correct and has not expired. If the token is valid, the REST API grants the client access to the requested resource. This method ensures that only authenticated clients can access resources, providing a layer of security for the API.

To gain a comprehensive overview of the incident involving DDOS attacks and ransomware, the SOC engineer should run and evaluate a full packet capture on the workloads, review Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) logs, and define a root cause. This will help in understanding the nature of the attacks, the extent of the damage, and the vulnerabilities that were exploited

 To detect abnormal behavior for a UK-based user traveling between three countries, creating a rule that triggers an alert for a successful VPN connection from any nondestination country is an effective strategy. This rule helps in identifying potential unauthorized access or compromised credentials if the user’s account is accessed from a location where they are not supposed to be2.

Predictive analytics is the most suitable data analytic technique for anticipating future cyberattacks. It involves using historical data, statistical algorithms, and machine learning techniques to identify the likelihood of future outcomes based on patterns and trends. This approach can help organizations forecast potential cyber threats and take proactive measures to mitigate them before they occur123.

The threat model for the SQL database, given that it manages transactions, access control, and atomicity, is primarily concerned with the confidentiality and integrity of the data. An attacker who gains access to the database could potentially read sensitive information or modify data, which could lead to unauthorized transactions, access control breaches, or compromise the atomicity of database operations. Therefore, the most pertinent threat is that an attacker can read or change data within the database.

References:

Understanding Cisco CyberOps Using Core Security Technologies (CBRCOR) course material would cover the various threats to databases and the importance of securing them against unauthorized access or modification.

The Cisco Certified CyberOps Associate certification includes knowledge about identifying and protecting against threats to critical infrastructure, such as SQL databases.

According to the NIST.SP 800-150 guide to cyber threat information sharing, before uploading an infected file containing sensitive information to a hybrid-analysis sandbox, the analyst is required to remove all personally identifiable information (PII) to safeguard privacy. This step is crucial to protect the identities of individuals and comply with privacy laws and regulations. PII includes any data that could potentially identify a specific individual, such as names, addresses, social security numbers, and other identifiers1.

References:

NIST.SP 800-150 provides guidelines for cyber threat information sharing, which includes the handling of sensitive information and the importance of removing PII to maintain privacy and security

Threat intelligence tools primarily search the Internet to identify potential malicious IP addresses, domain names, and URLs. They scour various online sources, including databases of known threats, security forums, and other cyber threat intelligence feeds to gather information. This data is then used to update their internal databases and protect against known and emerging threats.

The STIX (Structured Threat Information eXpression) in the context of the exhibit indicates a scenario where a Google Chrome extension is initiating direct IP connections using the WebSocket protocol, and the payloads are obfuscated and unreadable. This behavior is suspicious and suggests that the extension could be a front for malware that is using encrypted channels to communicate with a command and control server. The use of WebSockets and the obfuscation of payloads are common tactics used by malware authors to evade detection and maintain persistent control over compromised systems. The fact that the payloads cannot be decoded or read as UTF-8 text further supports the likelihood of malicious activity, as legitimate extensions would not typically need to obfuscate their communications.

References :=

STIX/TAXII is a framework for sharing cyber threat intelligence, which would include indicators of such suspicious activities1.

Understanding the implications of obfuscated payloads in network traffic, as described in cybersecurity resources23.

To comply with PCI standards for hardening systems, especially for an e-commerce website with multiple points of sale, it is essential to encrypt personal data. This includes any information that can be used to identify an individual, such as names, addresses, and credit card numbers. Encryption helps protect this data during transmission and storage, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches2.

The indicator of compromise (IoC) for the malware in question is that it has routines for encryption and decryption, which are used to conceal URLs/IP addresses. Additionally, it is capturing keystrokes and webcam events, and storing this data in encrypted files locally on the company server. This behavior is indicative of malware that is designed to stealthily collect and exfiltrate sensitive information without being easily detected. The use of encryption helps to hide the data and the destination to which it may be sent, making it more challenging for security systems to identify and block the malicious activity.

The presence of unusual internal traffic and unexplained encrypted data files suggests a malware outbreak. Malware can cause abnormal network traffic patterns and encrypt files on infected systems, often leading to ransomware attacks or data exfiltration efforts

After utilizing interactive behavior analysis in a sandbox environment, the next step in malware analysis is typically to disassemble the malware. This process involves breaking down the executable into assembly code to understand its structure and functionality. Disassembly allows the engineer to see the instructions that the malware executes, which can provide insights into its capabilities and purpose

To resolve the issue of a denial of service condition triggered by a remote attacker using SNMPv2, the ports associated with SNMP should be disabled. Ports UDP 161 and UDP 162 are used by SNMP for sending and receiving requests. Disabling these ports can prevent the attacker from exploiting the vulnerability associated with the ciscoFlashMIB OID on the affected device. It’s important to note that simply disabling SNMPv2 (option A) without addressing the specific ports may not fully mitigate the risk, and TCP small services (option B) and UDP small services (option D) are not directly related to SNMP traffic.

 The tactics, techniques, and procedures that align with the analysis of an internal workstation communicating over port 80 with an external server, where the file hash is associated with Duqu malware, would be Command and Control (C2) via an Application Layer Protocol. Duqu is known for its sophisticated command and control capabilities, which often involve communication over common network protocols to evade detection67.

The recommended action to mitigate an attack that is broadcasting a large number of ICMP packets using a spoofed source IP address is to use the subinterface command no ip directed-broadcast. This command prevents the Cisco IOS device from forwarding packets that are addressed to IP broadcast addresses. By disabling the directed broadcast feature, the network devices will not respond to broadcast messages sent to the network’s broadcast address, thus mitigating the attack and preventing the amplification of the ICMP packets back to the victim’s IP address.

 In Cisco Secure Network Analytics (Stealthwatch), when an engineer needs to analyze the top data transmissions to identify significant anomalies in traffic within a host group, the Top Conversations tool is used. This tool provides a detailed view of the communication between hosts, showing which pairs of hosts are exchanging the most data. By examining the top conversations, the engineer can pinpoint which specific data flows are contributing to the anomaly and take appropriate action.

The Top Conversations tool is particularly useful for this task because it focuses on the interactions between hosts, rather than just the volume of traffic (Top Ports), the individual hosts themselves (Top Hosts), or the peers (Top Peers) involved in the network communications. It allows for a more granular analysis of the network traffic, which is essential for identifying and addressing anomalies.

 The script provided in the exhibit is indicative of a Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA), which is commonly used by cyber threats to dynamically generate a large number of domain names. These domain names can serve as potential communication points with command and control (C2) servers. The script takes a list of seeds and applies a transformation to generate new domain names. It then checks these domains against a set of rules, such as not starting with “www.” If a domain does not meet the specified criteria, it is flagged as a potential C2 domain. This process is crucial in cyber operations for identifying and mitigating threats that use DGAs for evasion and maintaining persistence.

References :=

Understanding Cisco CyberOps Using Core Security Technologies (Official Cisco course material)

Cisco Certified CyberOps Associate Certification Overview (Cisco Learning Network)

The chmod command is used in Unix and Unix-like operating systems to change the file system modes of files and directories. The modes determine the permissions granted to the owner, group, and others. The command chmod 777 sets the mode of the file to be readable, writable, and executable by everyone. The number 777 corresponds to the permissions rwxrwxrwx, where r is read, w is write, and x is execute. This command is generally not recommended for use on a production system as it gives full permissions to every user, which can pose a significant security risk1.

The browser page rendering permissions are displayed in the HTTP response header named x-frame-options. This header is used to control whether a browser should be allowed to render a page in a ,