312-39v2: Certified SOC Analyst (CSA) v2 — Free Practice Questions
10 free sample questions from a bank of 106, with the correct answers and explanations. No signup required — start practising right now.
1A SIEM alert is triggered due to unusual network traffic involving NetBIOS. The System log shows that “The TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service entered the running state”. Concurrently, Event Code 4624: “An account was successfully logged on” appears for multiple machines within a short time frame. The logon type is identified as 3 (Network logon). Which of the following security incidents is the SIEM detecting?
A user connecting to shared files from multiple workstations
A malware infection spreading via SMB protocol
A network administrator conducting routine maintenance
An attacker performing lateral movement within the network
Answer: D
2A manufacturing company is deploying a SIEM system and wants to improve both its security monitoring and regulatory compliance capabilities. During the planning phase, the team decides to use an output-driven approach, starting with use cases that address unauthorized access to production control systems. They configure data sources and alert specific to this use case, ensuring they receive actionable alerts without excessive false positives. After validating its success, they move on to use cases related to supply chain disruptions and malware detection. Which of the following best describes the primary advantage of using an output-driven approach in SIEM deployment?
The company can collect logs from non-critical systems.
The SOC team can respond to all incidents in real time without delays.
The SIEM system can automatically block all unauthorized access attempts.
The company can create more complex use cases with greater scope.
Answer: D
3An attacker attempts to gain unauthorized access to a secure network by repeatedly guessing login credentials. The SIEM is configured to generate an alert after detecting 10 consecutive failed login attempts within a short timeframe. However, the attacker successfully logs in on the 9th attempt, just before the threshold is reached, bypassing the alert mechanism. Security teams only become aware of the incident after detecting suspicious activity post-login, highlighting a gap in the SIEM’s detection rules. What type of alert classification does this represent?
True Positive
False Positive
False Negative
True Negative
Answer: C
4Daniel Clark, a cybersecurity specialist working in the Cloud SOC for a government agency, is responsible for ensuring secure access to cloud applications while maintaining compliance with regulatory frameworks. His team needs a security solution that can enforce access policies to prevent unauthorized access to cloud based applications, monitor and restrict data sharing within SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS environments, ensure compliance with government regulations for data security and privacy, and apply security controls to prevent sensitive data exposure in the cloud. To achieve these objectives, the team has implemented a security technology that governs control over cloud resources, applies security policies, and protects sensitive cloud-stored data. Which Cloud SOC technology is Daniel’s team using?
Cloud Security Posture Management
Cloud-native anomaly detection
Cloud Workload Protection Platform
Cloud Access Security Broker
Answer: D
5A mid-sized healthcare organization is facing frequent phishing and ransomware attacks. They lack an internal SOC and want proactive threat detection and response capabilities. Compliance with HIPAA regulations is essential. The organization seeks a solution that includes both monitoring and rapid response to incidents. Which service best meets their needs?
MSSP with 24/7 log monitoring and incident escalation
Self-hosted SIEM with in-house SOC analysts
MDR with proactive threat hunting and incident containment
Cloud-based SIEM with MSSP-Managed services
Answer: C
6A Security Operations Center (SOC) analyst receives a high-priority alert indicating unusual user activity. An employee account is attempting to access company resources from a different country and outside of their normal working hours. This behavior raises concerns about potential account compromise or unauthorized access to automate the initial response and quickly restrict access while further investigating the incident, which SOAR Playbook would be relevant to adapt and implement?
Deprovisioning Users SOAR Playbook
Phishing Investigations SOAR Playbook
Alert Enrichment SOAR Playbook
Malware Containment SOAR Playbook
Answer: A
7A government agency responsible for protecting sensitive information needs to monitor its network for unusual data exfiltration attempts. Since traditional log data alone is insufficient to identify suspicious traffic patterns, the SIEM team decides to integrate traffic flow data into their system. This data will help detect anomalies, such as large data transfers to unauthorized destinations or unexpected traffic spikes. The team must choose the appropriate protocol to collect IP traffic information from network devices like routers and switches. Which protocol should be used to collect this data?
Syslog
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)
IPFIX (IP Flow Information Export)
Net Flow (RFC 3954)
Answer: C
8SecureTech Solutions, a managed security service provider (MSSP), is optimizing its log management architecture to enhance log storage, retrieval, and analysis efficiency. The SOC team needs to ensure that security logs are stored in a structured or semi-structured format, allowing for easy parsing, querying, and correlation of security events. To achieve this, they decide to implement a log storage format that organizes data in a text file in tabular structure, ensuring each log entry is stored in rows and columns. Additionally, they require a format that supports easy export to databases or spreadsheet-based analysis while maintaining readability. Which log format should the SOC team choose to store logs in a structured or semi structured format for efficient analysis?
Syslog Format
Cloud Storage
Comma-Separated Values (CSV) Format
Database
Answer: C
9A large web hosting service provider Web4Everyone is responsible for hosting multiple major websites, social media platforms and more. You are working here as a L1 SOC analyst responsible for investigating web server logs for potential malicious activity. Recently, your team detected multiple failed login attempts and unusual traffic patterns targeting the company’s web application. To efficiently analyze the logs and identify key details such as the remote host, username, timestamp, requested resource, and HTTP status code, and user-agent you need a structured log format that ensures quick and accurate parsing. Which standardized log format will you choose for this scenario?
Extended Log Format (ELF)
Tab-Separated Format
Common Log Format (CLF)
JSON Format
Answer: A
10At 10:30 AM, during routine monitoring, SOC’s Tier-1 Jennifer detects unusual network traffic and confirms an active LockBit ransomware infection targeting systems in the finance department. She escalates the issue to the SOC lead, Sarah, who activates the Incident Response Team (IRT) and instructs the network team to isolate the finance department’s VLAN to prevent further spread across the network. Which phase of the Incident Response process is currently being implemented?