300-215 Cisco Conducting Forensic Analysis and Incident Response Using Cisco CyberOps Technologies (CBRFIR) Free Practice Exam Questions (2026 Updated)

To prevent macro-based attacks, the Cisco CyberOps study guide emphasizes the importance of limiting execution of unauthorized or unsigned macros. "Requiring that all macros be digitally signed and limiting execution only to those that meet the required trust level is a key mitigation strategy against malicious macros." Additionally, enabling features like Controlled Folder Access helps in protecting sensitive directories from unauthorized changes by untrusted applications, including those launched via malicious macros .

These two measures—enforcing signed macro policies and leveraging controlled folder access—directly help in mitigating the risk posed by embedded malicious macros in documents.

According to the Cisco CyberOps Associate guide, the goal of a root cause analysis is to determine how an attacker successfully exploited a system so that similar vulnerabilities can be mitigated in the future. The "method of infection" (e.g., phishing email with malicious attachment, drive-by download, credential compromise, etc.) is the most relevant factor in understanding the initial access vector and subsequent spread of ransomware across the network.

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A “malicious insider” is someone within the organization who has authorized access but intentionally misuses that access to extract or exfiltrate data. In this case:

The HR user has legitimate access but deviates from their normal behavior pattern (accessing legal data daily instead of monthly).

The presence of large data dumps and the alert from a threat intelligence platform suggest intentional misuse rather than accidental behavior.

According to the Cisco CyberOps Associate guide, insider threats are identified by behavioral anomalies, especially involving sensitive data access patterns inconsistent with role-based access and historical usage profiles.

The magic number (also known as a magic byte) is a sequence of bytes used to identify the format of a file. For PDF files, the standard magic number is:

25 50 44 46, which translates to %PDF in ASCII. Option C (255044462d) begins with 25 50 44 46, confirming it's a PDF file signature. This is a key forensic detail when performing file type identification and validation of potentially obfuscated or renamed files.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools provide behavioral analytics and continuous monitoring to detect malware such as backdoors, which is especially critical on endpoints like macOS devices. These tools are essential to detect post-compromise activities and contain threats before they spread.

Secure Email Gateway (e.g., Cisco ESA) plays a key role in blocking phishing emails—the initial vector in this attack. It uses filters and reputation analysis to prevent malicious links or attachments from reaching end users.

Incorrect Options:

C. DLP focuses on preventing data exfiltration, not phishing prevention or backdoor detection.

D. IPS is effective for known signature-based threats but less effective against phishing links and endpoint-level backdoors.

E. WAF protects web servers, not end-user devices from phishing or backdoor infections.

Therefore, the correct answers are: A and B.

/etc/shadow: This file stores encrypted passwords and password aging information, including the date of the last password change (stored as the number of days since January 1, 1970). It is only readable by the root user, making it the primary source for forensic auditing of local password changes.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

From the exhibit, Cisco Secure Malware Analytics (formerly Threat Grid) has captured outbound HTTP POST communication to the IP address 51.38.124.206 on port 80. This destination is highlighted in the analysis under “Outbound HTTP POST Communications,” indicating exfiltration behavior or command-and-control (C2) signaling.

Key indicators:

The report shows that binary data was POSTed to this IP.

The source system generated 22 packets and sent 6,192 bytes.

The system has flagged the behavior with a severity of 25 and confidence of 25—suggesting that this is an IoC worth acting on.

Therefore, the artifacts suggest that the destination IP 51.38.124.206 is involved in malicious activity, and the correct answer is:

Answer: A. Destination IP 51.38.124.206 is identified as malicious.

YARA rules are pattern-matching rules used to identify malware based on specific strings, conditions, and binary patterns. They are most effective in memory or file scans where analysts search for known indicators or unique signatures via string matching.

Correct answer: C. string matching.

According to the MITRE ATT&CK matrix, when encrypted traffic is tunneled through a legitimate protocol such as HTTP (port 80) to a non-malicious domain, this aligns with the tactic “Exfiltration Over Asymmetric Encrypted Non-C2 Protocol” (T1048.002). The attacker is trying to hide exfiltration in otherwise benign traffic.

Once an incident has occurred, the appropriate course of action is to engage the organization's Incident Response (IR) plan. This is a structured approach to contain, analyze, and eradicate threats before they spread across the network.

The Cisco CyberOps Associate study guide emphasizes:

“Incident response and handling are essential within an organization… The main objective of implementing an incident handling process is to reduce the impact of a cyber-attack, ensure the damages caused are assessed, and implement recovery procedures”.

In particular, the containment phase of IR is focused on isolating the threat and preventing lateral movement or further compromise.

Options such as "root cause" or "attack surface" are relevant at later stages of analysis and mitigation, not immediate containment. Therefore, the correct answer is C.

The observed process tree (AcroRd32.exe → cmd.exe → powershell.exe) strongly suggests malicious behavior, particularly in PDF-based malware attacks leveraging embedded scripts or exploits.

A is correct: Submitting the suspicious PDF to Cisco Threat Grid allows sandbox analysis to detect hidden malicious behaviors.

D is correct: The suspicious activity warrants quarantining the host to contain potential spread or further compromise.

Hex Fiend is a hex editor that allows analysts to examine the raw byte content of files. One key use case is identifying and extracting byte-level patterns or signatures that can be translated into YARA rules for detecting malware. These hex patterns can be used to define precise signature-based detections.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

The exhibit lists several behaviors under categories such as Remote Access, Stealer/Phishing, Persistence, and Evasive Marks. Notably, under “Persistence” it states:

“Writes data to a remote process”

This behavior is indicative of “process injection,” a technique where malware writes or injects malicious code into the address space of another process. This allows the malware to evade detection and run within the context of a legitimate process.

This matches the MITRE ATT&CK technique T1055 (Process Injection), which is also discussed in the Cisco CyberOps Associate guide under evasion and persistence tactics used by malware.

While modified registry and data compression are possible signs of malware, they are not explicitly referenced in the exhibit. The definitive indicator shown is related to process injection.

Therefore, the correct answer is: C. process injection.

Steganography is the anti-forensics technique of hiding malicious content within seemingly innocent files, such as image, audio, or video files. The goal is to conceal data or code in a way that avoids suspicion and detection, thereby making traditional security inspection tools ineffective unless they are explicitly designed to detect hidden data within media files.

Steganography differs from encryption because it does not simply make data unreadable; it hides the existence of the data itself. It is commonly used in cyber operations to hide command-and-control instructions or to exfiltrate sensitive information in covert ways.