Own the CS0-003: CySA+ Prep That’s Built for Real-World SOC Analysts

The incident response policy or plan is a document that defines the roles and responsibilities, procedures and processes, communication and escalation protocols, and reporting and documentation requirements for handling security incidents. The lead should review what is documented in the incident response policy or plan to determine who should be communicated with and when during a security incident, as well as what information should be shared and how. The incident response policy or plan should also be aligned with the organizational policies and legal obligations regarding incident notification and disclosure.

An incident response plan (IRP) is a document that defines the roles and responsibilities, procedures, and guidelines for responding to a security incident. It helps the security team to act quickly and effectively, minimizing the impact and cost of the incident. An IRP should specify who should conduct the next steps following a security event, such as containment, eradication, recovery, and analysis12. References: CompTIA CySA+ CS0-003 Certification Study Guide, page 362; 6 Incident Response Steps to Take After a Security Event, section 2.

The best security control to implement against sensitive information being disclosed via file sharing services is to improve employee training and awareness. Employee training and awareness can help educate employees on the risks and consequences of using file sharing services for sensitive information, as well as the policies and procedures for handling such information securely and appropriately. Employee training and awareness can also help foster a security culture and encourage employees to report any incidents or violations of information security.

1. How many employees clicked on the link in the phishing email?

According to the email server logs, 25 employees clicked on the link in the phishing email.

2. On how many workstations was the malware installed?

According to the file server logs, the malware was installed on 15 workstations.

3. What is the executable file name of the malware?

The executable file name of the malware is svchost.EXE.

Answers

1. 25

2. 15

3. svchost.EXE

Agent-based vulnerability scanning is a method that uses software agents installed on the target systems to scan for vulnerabilities. This method meets the requirements of the project because it uses minimal network bandwidth and host resources, provides accurate and near real-time updates, and does not require any stored credentials on the scanner. References: What Is Vulnerability Scanning? Types, Tools and Best Practices, Section: Types of vulnerability scanning; CompTIA CySA+ Study Guide: Exam CS0-003, 3rd Edition, Chapter 4: Security Operations and Monitoring, page 154.

tcpdump is a command-line tool that can capture and analyze network packets from a given interface or file. The -n option prevents tcpdump from resolving hostnames, which can speed up the analysis. The -r option reads packets from a file, in this case packets.pcap. The host [IP address] filter specifies that tcpdump should only display packets that have the given IP address as either the source or thedestination. This command can help the security analyst detect connections to a suspicious IP address by collecting the packet captures from the gateway. Official References:

https://partners.comptia.org/docs/default-source/resources/comptia-cysa-cs0-002-exam-objectives

https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/quiz/Sample-CompTIA-CySA-test-questions-with-answers

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompTIA/comments/tmxx84/passed_cysa_heres_my_experience_and_how_i_studied/

The takeown command is used to take ownership of a file or folder that previously was denied access to the current user or group12. The activity observed indicates that someone has taken ownership of all files and folders under the C:\Users\Documents\HR\Employees directory, which may contain sensitive or confidential information. This could be a sign of unauthorized privileges, as the user or group may not have the legitimate right or need to access those files or folders. Taking ownership of files or folders could also enable the user or group to modify or delete them, which could affect the integrity or availability of the data.

Log entry 4 shows an attempt to exploit the zero-day command injection vulnerability by appending a malicious command (;cat /etc/passwd) to the end of a legitimate request (/cgi-bin/index.cgi?name=John). This command would try to read the contents of the /etc/passwd file, which contains user account information, and could lead to further compromise of the system. The other log entries do not show any signs of command injection, as they do not contain any special characters or commands that could alter the intended behavior of the application. Official References:

https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/command-injection/

https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/published/

The correct answer is D. Routing table. The routing table is volatile technical evidence because it is stored in memory and can change or be lost when the system is isolated, powered down, rebooted, or otherwise modified. In incident response and forensics, volatile evidence must be collected before less volatile evidence.

Exact supporting extract: the Sybex CySA+ Practice Tests explanation states that routing tables are typically stored in RAM, making them highly volatile. It also explains the order of volatility from least to most volatile as backups/printouts, disk drives, virtual memory, and finally CPU cache, registers, and RAM.

The Sybex CySA+ Study Guide states that forensic acquisition must account for the order of volatility, meaning how easily data can be lost. It explains that memory and cache data are highly volatile and may be lost if the system is powered off, while disk data is much less volatile.

The Secbay CySA+ guide also states that the order of volatility must be followed because failing to do so will likely result in evidence being lost. It specifically notes that volatile data is kept in areas such as CPU cache and memory, while archived media persists for much longer.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A. Hard disk is persistent storage and can be imaged later using forensic procedures.

B. Primary boot partition is also persistent disk evidence.

C. Malicious files are important, but files on disk are less volatile than memory-resident network state.

E. Static IP address is configuration information and is not as volatile as the active routing table.

D is correct because the routing table should be captured before isolation changes the server’s active network state.

Port 3389 is commonly used by Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), which is a service that allows remote access to a system. A vulnerability on this port could allow an attacker to compromise the web server or use it as a pivot point to access other systems. However, if the firewall blocks this port, the risk of exploitation is reduced.