CS0-003 Security Operations Practice Question
A security analyst is triaging an alert from the EDR that shows the process 'powershell.exe' with a parent process of 'winword.exe'. The user recently opened a document from an email. What is the most likely explanation?
⚠ Common exam trap
CS0-004 often tests parent-child process lineage — candidates pick the 'user double-clicked a script' option, missing that the parent process would be explorer.exe, not winword.exe, which is the key forensic clue.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The document contains a malicious macro that spawned PowerShell to execute commands
When winword.exe (Microsoft Word) is the parent of powershell.exe, it almost always indicates a malicious macro in the document spawned a shell to execute commands. This parent-child relationship is a classic indicator of macro-based malware delivery, especially when the document arrived via email and the user opened it. Legitimate Word documents rarely spawn PowerShell directly.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The user double-clicked a PowerShell script attached to the email
Why it's wrong here
If the user had directly double-clicked a PowerShell script attachment from their email client, the process tree would show powershell.exe spawning with the mail client, such as outlook.exe, or explorer.exe as its parent process; the observed parent process is winword.exe, meaning the PowerShell execution was triggered from inside Word after the document was already opened, not from clicking a separate attached file.
- ✓
The document contains a malicious macro that spawned PowerShell to execute commands
Why this is correct
Malicious VBA macros embedded in Office documents commonly use the Shell function or WScript.Shell object to launch powershell.exe directly as a child process of winword.exe, often passing obfuscated, base64-encoded, or download-cradle commands as arguments to retrieve a second-stage payload, which produces exactly the winword.exe-to-powershell.exe parent-child relationship seen in this alert and matches the well-documented email-delivered macro attack pattern.
- ✗
A scheduled task started PowerShell that initiated Word
Why it's wrong here
A scheduled task that starts PowerShell, which then launches Word, would produce a process tree with taskeng.exe or svchost.exe as the parent of powershell.exe and winword.exe as a child or sibling process at most, which is the reverse of the relationship reported; the alert clearly shows winword.exe as the parent of powershell.exe, ruling out this ordering entirely.
- ✗
The user is running a legitimate PowerShell script from within a Word document
Why it's wrong here
While enterprise environments occasionally use legitimate document automation that shells out to PowerShell, this is uncommon, typically restricted to signed and centrally deployed macros, and highly unusual for a document delivered via an external email; given the context of a user opening an unsolicited emailed attachment, the far more probable explanation in a security triage is malicious rather than authorized automation.
Go deeper
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Key term
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Key term
Alert
An alert is a notification that something unusual or potentially harmful has happened in a computer system or network.
About these practice questions
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official CompTIA exam blueprint
This CS0-004 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CS0-004 exam.