Pass the Cisco CyberOps Professional 300-215 Questions and answers with ValidTests

The eradication phase in incident response involveseliminating the root cause of the incidentand strengthening defenses to prevent reoccurrence. In this case:

Intrusion Prevention System (D): Adding new rules to the IPS to detect and block malicious activity on TCP/135 is a direct eradication step to remove the threat’s entry point and prevent future attacks.

Centralized User Management (C): Hardening user accounts, removing unnecessary permissions, and applying tighter authentication/authorization measures helps eliminate the possibility that threat actors could exploit weak or mismanaged accounts to continue accessing the system.

Althoughanti-malware software (A)andenterprise block listing (E)are valuable, themost direct eradication stepshere specifically involve managing network access (via IPS) and strengthening user controls (via centralized user management), especially when TCP/135 (MSRPC endpoint mapper) can be used to enumerate services and potentially access vulnerable endpoints remotely.

This aligns with best practices outlined in incident response frameworks (such as the NIST SP 800-61 and referenced resources), which emphasizeclosing the exploited entry points(in this case, TCP/135) andremoving any lingering access pointsthrough user management and network control enhancements.

Fileless malwareoperates in memory and often leverages legitimate tools such asPowerShellto avoid traditional file-based detection. Since these threats don't leave typical file traces, analysts must rely onPowerShell event logsto trace suspicious or unauthorized script execution.

The Cisco CyberOps Associate guide explicitly states:

“PowerShell logs provide insight into script block execution and can reveal indicators of fileless attacks that reside in memory.”

Hence,PowerShell event logsare the most effective forensic source for detecting fileless malware activity on Windows systems.

From the Wireshark capture:

A (iraniansk.com): This domain isnot a known legitimate resourceand is hosting a suspicious file named “Fy.exe,” strongly indicative of amalware distribution domain.

D (Fy.exe): TheContent-Disposition: attachment; filename="Fy.exe"header explicitly signals abinary executabledownload, a key indicator in Emotet campaigns.

WhileContent-Type: application/octet-stream(E) is typical of binary data transfers, it isnot uniqueto malware and cannot by itself serve as a strong IoC. Thenginx server (B)andcookie/hash string (C)similarly do not uniquely indicate compromise.

In highly sensitive environments such as secure government networks, the presence of anomalous DLL injection, beaconing to known interception points, and signs of encrypted data exfiltration constitutes a critical incident. The appropriate response in such classified contexts involves:

Invoking a pre-established, classified incident response protocol,

Immediately notifying national cyber defense operatives (such as national CERT or military cyber command),

Prioritizing containment to stop lateral spread,

Proceeding with eradication of malware or backdoors.

This response sequence aligns with the high-severity, immediate-response model described in the Cisco CyberOps Associate v1.2 curriculum under national defense and classified incident frameworks. The study guide emphasizes the importance of stakeholder communication and multi-agency coordination during advanced persistent threat (APT) intrusions involving critical infrastructure or defense systems.

The Wireshark output shows SMB protocol transactions, including NT Create AndX Response and Write AndX Response, indicating the transfer of files or objects. SMB (Server Message Block) is a protocol used for file sharing and printer access in Windows networks. The log does not indicate phishing or redirection behavior but rather normal SMB communication such as accessing files or shared resources.

—

Dynamic malware analysis involves executing the malware in a controlled environment to observe its behavior, such as file creation, network traffic, or system modifications. Asandboxis designed for this purpose—it safely executes and monitors suspicious code without risking the host system. The other tools (Decompiler, Unpacker, Disassembler) are primarily used in static analysis.

Correct answer: D. Sandbox

—

The event log shown in the exhibit isEvent ID 104, which in Windows indicates"The audit log was cleared."This is a significant indicator oflog tampering, a common post-exploitation technique used by attackers to hide their tracks after exfiltrating data or performing unauthorized actions.

The Cisco CyberOps Associate guide mentions:

"Log deletion events, especially Event ID 104, should be treated as potential evidence of malicious activity attempting to cover tracks".

Combined with large data dumps to network shares, this indicates not only unauthorized activity but also deliberate efforts to erase forensic evidence—characteristic oflog tampering.

The exhibit shows multipleARP reply packetswith the same IP addresses (192.168.51.105and192.168.51.201) being mapped todifferent MAC addresses, which triggers the message: "duplicate use of [IP] detected". This is a strong indicator of anARP spoofing(or poisoning) attack.

ARP spoofing occurs when a malicious actor sends falsified ARP messages to associate their MAC address with the IP address of another host. This misleads other devices on the network and allows interception or redirection of traffic.

The Cisco CyberOps Associate guide specifically recommendsconfiguring port securityon switches as a method tomitigate ARP spoofing, by limiting the number of MAC addresses allowed per port or statically assigning legitimate MAC addresses to switch ports.

The code includes syntax and modules such asimport win32con,import win32api, and uses Python-specific formatting likedef,try/except, andprint, clearly indicating that this is written in Python. It also uses thewmimodule to monitor process creation events—a common technique in Python-based process monitoring scripts on Windows.

—

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

The log entry contains the following key elements:

The timestamp:(04/Jan/2022:20:18:06 +0000)

HTTP method and URI:"GET /%60%60%60%60%60%60/ HTTP/2.0"

HTTP status code:404

User-Agent:Mozilla/5.0 ... Firefox/95.0

The status code404indicates that the requested resource was not found on the server. This is a standard HTTP response that signifies the server could not locate the requested URI (in this case, likely due to a malformed or invalid path/\`````/, where%60is the URL-encoded form of the backtick character "").

There is no clear evidence of SQL injection, WAF detection, or redirection in this log. The use of encoded backticks may suggest probing behavior, but the log does not show a definitive attack signature.

Therefore, the correct interpretation is:

Answer: D. The requested page was not found.