Cisco 300-220 Practice Test Questions Answers

The correct answer ismonitoring NetFlow records for abnormal beaconing patterns. Cisco Secure Network Analytics is fundamentally abehavioral analytics platform, not a signature-based detection tool.

Advanced adversaries deliberately avoid known malicious infrastructure to bypass traditional IOC-based defenses. As a result, IP addresses, domains, and threat intelligence feeds (Options A and D) provide limited long-term value and sit at thelowest levels of the Pyramid of Pain.

Stealthwatch excels at detectingbehavioral anomalies in network traffic, particularly:

Regular, low-volume outbound connections

Consistent timing intervals (beaconing)

Rare destination communication

Protocol misuse over common ports (80/443)

These patterns are characteristic ofC2 traffic, even when encryption and legitimate cloud services are used. By analyzingNetFlow telemetry, analysts can detect C2 behavior without needing to know the destination in advance.

Firewall logs (Option C) are reactive and lack behavioral context. They also miss allowed traffic, which is where most stealthy C2 operates.

This hunting technique aligns directly withCBRTHD blueprint objectivesrelated to:

Network-based threat hunting

Detecting command-and-control communications

Moving detection higher on the Pyramid of Pain

Therefore,Option Bis the most effective and Cisco-aligned answer.

The correct answer isattack path analysis using identity relationships. Cloud breaches increasingly occur throughmisconfigured identity permissions, not software flaws.

Attack path analysis mapstrust relationships, role assumptions, permissions, and access boundariesto understand how attackers can pivot through identity systems. This is especially relevant in cloud environments where:

Roles can assume other roles

Permissions are inherited

Overprivileged identities are common

Option A is too abstract and does not capture privilege chaining. Option B assumes malware execution, which is unnecessary in identity-based attacks. Option D measures severity but does not model attacker movement.

Professional threat hunters and cloud security teams rely on attack path analysis to:

Identify privilege escalation paths

Detect identity blast radius

Prioritize remediation of high-risk relationships

This directly supports proactive hunting and aligns withidentity-first security principles.

Therefore, optionCis correct.

The correct answer isbehavioral analysis of outbound traffic patterns. Advanced attackers intentionally usestandard protocols such as HTTP and HTTPSto blend exfiltration traffic with normal activity.

Hash-based and signature-based methods are ineffective because:

No malware may be present

Traffic appears legitimate

Infrastructure is frequently rotated

Behavioral analysis detects anomalies such as:

Unusual data transfer volumes

Abnormal session timing

Beaconing patterns

Rare destinations

This approach aligns withnetwork threat hunting best practicesand forces attackers to significantly alter behavior, increasing adversary cost.

Therefore, optionBis correct.

The correct answers areUse of Windows Remote Management (C)andUse of tools and commands to connect to remote shares (E). Both are core mechanisms attackers leverage forlateral movementafter gaining valid credentials through techniques such as pass-the-hash or pass-the-ticket.

Windows Remote Management (WinRM) is a legitimate administrative service used for remote command execution and system management. However, attackers frequently abuse WinRM to move laterally by executing commands on remote endpoints using stolen credentials. From a threat hunting perspective, abnormal WinRM usage—such as execution outside normal administrative hours, from unusual source hosts, or by non-administrative user accounts—is a strong indicator of lateral movement activity.

Similarly, the use of tools and commands to connect to remote shares (such as net use, wmic, SMB-based access, or mounting administrative shares like C$) is a classic lateral movement technique. Attackers use remote shares to transfer tools, stage payloads, and execute malware across systems. Monitoring these activities at the endpoint level helps identify suspicious authentication attempts, unexpected share access, and abnormal file transfers.

Option A (runas) relates more to privilege escalation than lateral movement. Option B is specific to Linux privilege persistence and is not relevant to endpoint lateral movement hunting in this context. Option D (scheduled task creation) is primarily associated with persistence rather than movement between systems.

By monitoring WinRM activity and remote share usage, security teams gain visibility intocredential-based movement, which remains one of the most common and dangerous attacker behaviors in enterprise environments. Effective lateral movement hunting focuses onhow credentials are used, not just how they are stolen.

The correct answer isdetecting abnormal authentication behavior across VPN and cloud access. This outcome targetsbehavioral detection, which sits significantly higher on the Pyramid of Pain than static indicators.

Options A and C rely on domains and hashes, which attackers can trivially change. Option D is a response action, not a hunting outcome.

Credential misuse is one of themost common initial access vectors, especially in cloud and remote-access environments. Detecting abnormal authentication behavior—such as:

Impossible travel

Unusual login times

Excessive failed logins

Geographic anomalies

forces attackers tochange how they operate, not just what infrastructure they use.

Cisco tools such as:

Secure Network Analytics

Secure Endpoint

Secure Firewall

Identity telemetry via VPN and SSO

enable this higher-fidelity detection approach. This aligns directly withCBRTHD blueprint objectivesfocused onidentity-based threat hunting.

Therefore,Option Bis correct.