312-85 Hard Questions — 25 Difficult Questions

Question 1

During an investigation, you observe an attacker utilizing a custom-compiled Trojan that bypasses EDR detection. According to the Cyber Kill Chain, at which phase is this specific action of developing the custom tool occurring?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Weaponization. The Weaponization phase is where the adversary creates the malicious payload or tool, such as a custom Trojan, to exploit the target.

Answer

Exploitation

Answer

Delivery

Answer

Installation

Question 2

You are integrating a dark web monitoring feed into your TIP. The data arrives as unstructured text. What is the most effective first step in the data processing pipeline?

Accepted Answer

Application of NLP techniques to extract entities.. NLP (Natural Language Processing) is the standard technique for converting unstructured text into structured, normalized intelligence.

Answer

Hashing the entire document.

Answer

Direct ingestion into the SIEM.

Answer

Manual entry into a spreadsheet.

Question 3

You observe an adversary using a legitimate VPN tunnel to communicate with their C2 server. Under the MITRE ATT&CK framework, which technique is this?

Accepted Answer

T1572: Protocol Tunneling. This is T1572 (Protocol Tunneling) or T1071.001 (Web Protocols), where the adversary leverages existing network protocols or channels to mask C2 traffic.

Answer

T1204: User Execution

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T1133: External Remote Services

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T1053: Scheduled Task

Question 4

Which THREE of the following are key components of a STIX 2.1 'Indicator' object?

Accepted Answer

valid_from. The Indicator object in STIX 2.1 contains specific properties including the pattern, validity period, and confidence score.

Answer

firewall_acl_rule

Answer

user_password_hash

Question 5

You are analyzing an APT threat group that consistently uses 'living-off-the-land' techniques. How should you approach identifying their presence using the MITRE ATT&CK framework?

Accepted Answer

Monitor for anomalous process execution patterns. Because they use legitimate tools, you must focus on behavioral detection (Tactic-Technique-Procedure analysis) rather than signature-based file detection.

Answer

Scan for known malware signatures

Answer

Update firewall rules for all known ports

Answer

Focus on file hash blacklisting

Question 6

Which THREE of the following are common attributes used to characterize an 'Observed Data' object in STIX 2.1?

Accepted Answer

number_observed. Observed data objects record the 'first_observed', 'last_observed', and 'number_observed' properties to provide context to the sighting.

Answer

vulnerability_scanner_id

Answer

root_password

Question 7

Which THREE MITRE ATT&CK tactics are commonly involved in an adversary's effort to maintain a presence on a compromised system?

Accepted Answer

Defense Evasion. Persistence, Defense Evasion, and Privilege Escalation are essential for staying on a system and remaining undetected.

Answer

Exfiltration

Answer

Reconnaissance

Question 8

You are performing threat hunting based on the Diamond Model. You identified a new Infrastructure node (IP). What is the logical next step in the Diamond Model analysis?

Accepted Answer

Pivot to identify the Capability or Adversary. After identifying infrastructure, the next step is to pivot to identify the associated Capability or Adversary, creating a chain of evidence.

Answer

Update the firewall blacklist only

Answer

Change all user passwords

Answer

Close the incident ticket

Question 9

Which THREE data sources are typically analyzed when investigating an insider threat according to security behavior analytics?

Accepted Answer

Sensitive file access and data movement tracking.. Insider threats are detected via access logs, file activity, and network communication patterns.

Answer

Employee cafeteria transaction history.

Answer

Public internet speed test results.

Question 10

During a threat modeling session, you are analyzing a system's 'Attack Surface'. You decide to apply the 'Least Privilege' principle. Which specific analysis technique are you practicing to reduce potential pathways?

Accepted Answer

Attack Surface Reduction. Attack Surface reduction through Least Privilege is a foundational technique in threat modeling aimed at minimizing the damage potential of a compromise.

Answer

Threat Vector Analysis

Answer

Risk Likelihood Assessment

Answer

Threat Actor Attribution

Question 11

You are troubleshooting a feed ingestion failure in an OpenCTI platform where the connector logs show '403 Forbidden' during a HTTPS pull. What is the primary troubleshooting step?

Accepted Answer

Check if the source IP is whitelisted on the threat intelligence provider side.. 403 Forbidden indicates the server understood the request but refuses to authorize it, often due to IP whitelisting or invalid API tokens at the source.

Answer

Update the SSL certificates on the collector.

Answer

Increase the connector memory allocation.

Answer

Restart the OpenCTI RabbitMQ service.

Question 12

You are using MISP to ingest a feed that provides indicators in CSV format. You need to map the 'src_ip' column to the appropriate MISP attribute type. Which mapping is most accurate for ensuring effective correlation?

Accepted Answer

Map to 'ip-src'.. IP-src is the standard MISP attribute type for source IP addresses, allowing for proper correlation with network logs.

Answer

Map to 'text' attribute type.

Answer

Map to 'domain'.

Answer

Map to 'comment'.

Question 13

While processing threat intelligence, you encounter an indicator containing a 'base64' encoded payload. Which action should be performed during normalization to maintain searchability?

Accepted Answer

Decode the content and extract nested indicators.. Decoding the payload allows the analyst to extract actual IOCs (like C2 domains) which can then be indexed.

Answer

Replace the payload with a static hash.

Answer

Discard the indicator as encrypted.

Answer

Store the raw base64 string as a comment.

Question 14

In the context of STIX 2.1, what is the purpose of the 'relationship' object?

Accepted Answer

To link two objects together.. The relationship object links two SDOs (like an Indicator and a Malware object) to provide context.

Answer

To define the schema version.

Answer

To encrypt the data transport.

Answer

To set the confidence score.

Question 15

An analyst is mapping internal incident data to STIX 2.1 objects. You need to link a specific threat actor to the infrastructure they recently utilized. Which object type should you use to link the 'Threat-Actor' object to the 'Infrastructure' object?

Accepted Answer

Relationship. In STIX 2.1, the 'Relationship' object is specifically used to connect two SDOs (Domain Objects) with a defined relationship type such as 'uses'.

Answer

Indicator

Answer

Sighting

Answer

Observed-Data

Question 16

You are troubleshooting an issue where a SIEM cannot parse an incoming STIX 2.1 bundle. The bundle contains a 'Relationship' object linking a 'Malware' object to an 'Infrastructure' object. Which property within the 'Relationship' object must be verified to ensure the link type is recognized by the parser?

Accepted Answer

'relationship_type'. The 'relationship_type' property defines the semantic nature of the link; if it does not match the STIX 2.1 controlled vocabulary for that SDO pair, the parser will reject the bundle.

Answer

'source_ref'

Answer

'target_ref'

Answer

'spec_version'

Question 17

Which THREE actions are typically performed during the 'Processing' phase of the threat intelligence lifecycle? (Choose three)

Accepted Answer

Aggregating and deduplicating indicators from multiple sources. Processing is where data is made usable through normalization, aggregation, and filtering.

Answer

Presenting findings to the board of directors

Answer

Identifying new intelligence requirements

Question 18

An intelligence manager is reviewing the threat intelligence program's intelligence gap analysis. The analysis reveals that the team frequently fails to detect supply chain intrusions until late in the attack lifecycle. Which adjustments to the direction and planning phase should the manager implement?

Accepted Answer

Shift intelligence requirements to focus on initial access vectors, third-party supplier dependencies, and forums frequented by Initial Access Brokers (IABs). Refining collection requirements and pivoting focus toward upstream threat indicators (such as supplier dependencies, third-party vendor risks, and initial access brokers) addresses late detection of supply chain intrusions.

Answer

Disable all external threat intelligence feeds to reduce noise in the security operations center

Answer

Reassign all malware reverse engineering tasks to helpdesk support personnel

Answer

Increase the budget for automated SIEM log retention from 30 days to 90 days

Question 19

You are using the MITRE ATT&CK framework to map an adversary's actions. The adversary uses 'PowerShell' to execute commands on the victim. Which Tactic does this fall under?

Accepted Answer

Execution. Execution is the tactic used to run malicious code on a target system; PowerShell is a common technique within that tactic.

Answer

Persistence

Answer

Exfiltration

Answer

Privilege Escalation

Question 20

A CTI team is conducting a threat landscape analysis for a global financial institution. The analyst wants to apply the Diamond Model of Intrusion Analysis during the requirements planning phase to scope out potential adversary capabilities and infrastructure requirements. Which vertex of the Diamond Model directly captures the tools and techniques used by the adversary?

Accepted Answer

Capability. In the Diamond Model, the four core vertices are Adversary, Capability, Infrastructure, and Victim. Capability represents the tools and techniques (TTPs) used by the adversary.

Answer

Infrastructure

Answer

Adversary

Answer

Victim