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Tactical intelligenceprovides insights into the specific behaviors, tools, and techniques used by threat actors. When a Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) team produces a report detailing a threat actor’s typical behaviors and intent, they are delivering tactical intelligence. This type of intelligence is actionable and directly supports defenders in identifying, mitigating, and responding to threats in a timely manner.

Tactical Intelligence:

Focuses on the specific, detailed activities of threat actors, such as the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) they employ.

This intelligence helps in creating defensive strategies, such as refining detection rules, improving incident response plans, and enhancing threat hunting efforts.

Incorrect Options:

A. Operational:Operational intelligence involves real-time information and insights that support ongoing operations, often within a narrow timeframe.

B. Executive:Executive intelligence is high-level and strategic, intended for decision-makers and typically involves summaries rather than detailed technical information.

D. Strategic:Strategic intelligence is long-term and broad in scope, focusing on overall trends and the geopolitical context, rather than specific TTPs.

CTI Frameworks:Standards such as the MITRE ATT&CK framework, which classify tactical intelligence within the spectrum of threat intelligence.

References:

The main difference between hypothesis-driven and data-driven threat hunting lies in the approach. Inhypothesis-drivenhunting, the hunter starts with a theory or hypothesis about what kind of malicious activity might be occurring and then searches the data to confirm or refute that hypothesis. On the other hand,data-drivenhunting involves sifting through existing datasets to uncover patterns, anomalies, or activities that were not initially suspected. Hypothesis-driven approaches are more focused and often guided by threat intelligence or knowledge of attacker behaviors, while data-driven approaches rely on broad data analysis to identify unexpected threats.

Therexcommand in Splunk can be used to extract or replace data using regular expressions. To dynamically replace values with a specific pattern, such as replacing credit card numbers with "X", the mode needs to be set tosed. Thesedmode allows for string replacement within a field using regular expressions, enabling the substitution of matching patterns with a specified string.

The MITRE ATT&CK framework categorizes Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) used by attackers. It is a globally accessible knowledge base of adversarial tactics and techniques based on real-world observations, and it is widely used by cybersecurity professionals to understand and defend against various cyber threats.

Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs):

Tactics:The high-level goals that attackers aim to achieve during an attack. For example, gaining initial access to a network.

Techniques:The specific methods used to achieve these tactics, such as phishing or exploiting a vulnerability.

Procedures:The detailed steps and tools that attackers use to implement a technique.

MITRE ATT&CK Framework:MITRE ATT&CK organizes these TTPs into a matrix that reflects different stages of an attack lifecycle, from initial access to exfiltration. The framework helps security teams by:

Mapping Detection and Defense:Organizations can map their existing detection capabilities against the ATT&CK matrix to identify gaps.

Threat Hunting:Security teams use the framework to guide their threat-hunting activities, focusing on specific techniques associated with known adversaries.

Incident Response:During incident response, analysts can use the ATT&CK framework to understand the behaviors exhibited by an attacker, which helps in creating effective containment and eradication strategies.

Why MITRE ATT&CK:Unlike compliance-focused frameworks like NIST 800-53 or ISO 27000, which provide security controls and best practices, MITRE ATT&CK is specifically focused on the behavior of adversaries. This focus makes it an invaluable resource for understanding how attacks unfold and how to counteract them.

MITRE ATT&CK Website:The official site provides detailed information on each tactic and technique, along with examples of how they have been used in real-world attacks.

Threat Intelligence Platforms:Many platforms integrate with MITRE ATT&CK, providing enhanced detection and response capabilities by mapping security events to the framework.

Security Research Papers:Numerous papers and reports analyze specific attacks using the ATT&CK framework, offering insights into its practical applications in cybersecurity defense.

References:MITRE ATT&CK is a foundational tool in modern cybersecurity, providing a detailed and actionable understanding of adversary behaviors that can be directly applied to enhance an organization's defensive posture.

In the context of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), determining whether an event is a True Negative, True Positive, False Negative, or False Positive depends on the system's detection and the reality of the situation.

Let's break down the scenario:

IDS Signature Explanation:

The IDS is set to detect and alert on logins to a server, but only if they happen during a specific time window, from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM.

The question states that no alerts occur during this time frame, but the IDS signature is known to be correct.

Understanding Detection Terms:

True Positive: The IDS correctly detects an intrusion or suspicious activity that is actually happening.

True Negative: The IDS does not detect any activity because no suspicious or malicious activity is occurring, and this lack of detection is correct.

False Positive: The IDS detects an intrusion or activity, but it is a false alarm (i.e., there is no real threat).

False Negative: The IDS fails to detect a real intrusion or activity when it should have, missing a legitimate alert.

Applying the Scenario:

In this case, no IDS alerts occurred during the specified time frame. If there were no actual logins during this period and the signature was designed correctly, then the absence of alerts is expected and appropriate.

Since no suspicious logins occurred, and the IDS did not trigger any alerts, this situation represents a True Negative—the system correctly identified that there was no suspicious activity to alert on.

Why the Answer is "True Negative":

The IDS signature is working as expected.

The condition that would trigger an alert (logins during the specified time) did not happen, so the lack of alerts is a correct response.

Therefore, this is classified as a True Negative because no malicious activity took place, and the IDS correctly refrained from raising an alert.

Comparison to Other Options:

B. True Positive – This would indicate that an alert occurred because of actual suspicious activity, but in this case, no alerts occurred.

C. False Negative – This would mean that suspicious activity occurred, but the IDS failed to detect it. In this case, there was no activity to detect, so this option is not correct.

D. False Positive – This would suggest the IDS raised an alert when no suspicious activity happened, but again, no alerts occurred, so this doesn’t apply.

References:

Cybersecurity analysts working with IDS systems frequently use concepts like True Negative and False Positive in evaluating the effectiveness of their detection tools.

The correct handling of such detection cases is critical to minimizing unnecessary alerts (False Positives) and ensuring real threats are not missed (avoiding False Negatives).

The scenario describes an attack where thousands of failed login attempts are made using various usernames and passwords, which is indicative of aCredential Stuffingattack. This type of attack involves using lists of stolen credentials (usernames and passwords) obtained from previous data breaches to attempt to gain unauthorized access to user accounts. Attackers take advantage of the fact that many users reuse passwords across multiple sites. UnlikePassword Spraying(which tries a few common passwords against many accounts) orPassword Cracking(which tries to guess or decrypt passwords), credential stuffing leverages large datasets of valid credentials obtained from other breaches.

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TheevalSPL expression in Splunk supports several categories of functions, includingJSON functions(e.g.,spath),Text functions(e.g.,substr,trim), andComparison and Conditional functions(e.g.,if,case). However,Threat functionsis not a valid category within theevalcommand. Theevalcommand is primarily used for transforming and manipulating data in various ways, but it does not include a category specifically for threat-related functions.

In this scenario, the analyst cannot conclude whether the Notable Event is a true positive or a false positive due to the absence of necessary logs and artifacts. The appropriate eventdisposition in this case is "Other," as it indicates that further action is required, such as ingesting the missing logs. The involvement of a security engineer to ensure the necessary data is available for proper investigation is implied, making "Other" the most suitable option.

To investigate which process initiated a network connection, an analyst would use theEndpointdata model in Splunk Enterprise Security. The Endpoint data model contains fields related to processes, file activity, and host-level data, which are essential for tracing back the source of suspicious network activity to the specific process or application that initiated it. This is crucial for understanding the scope of an attack and determining the origin of malicious network traffic.

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Thestatscommand is used to generate statistics, such as counts, over specific fields. In this case, the commandindex=security_logs eventtype=failed_login | stats count as failed_attempts by src_ip | sort -failed_attemptscreates a temporary table that counts the number of failed login attempts (failed_attempts) for each source IP (src_ip). Thesort -failed_attemptsensures the results are ordered by the number of failed attempts in descending order, making it easier for an analyst to identify problematic IPs.