Threat Hunting

5 minutes 5 Questions

Threat hunting is a proactive approach to identifying and mitigating cybersecurity threats before they can cause significant harm to an organization's network. Unlike reactive incident response measures, threat hunting involves actively searching for indicators of compromise (IOCs) and anomalous behavior within the organization's environment to detect advanced persistent threats (APTs) and other sophisticated attacks that may have bypassed traditional security controls. Threat hunting often involves the use of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning techniques to sift through vast amounts of data and identify potential threats. By incorporating threat hunting into their security operations, organizations can strengthen their overall security posture and better protect against emerging threats.

Guide on Threat Hunting for CompTIA Security Plus Exam

What is Threat Hunting:
Threat hunting is a proactive approach used by organizations to find and mitigate threats which may be evading existing security measures. It involves the proactive and iterative search through networks or datasets to detect threats that evade existing control systems.

Why Threat Hunting is Important:
Threat hunting is crucial because it allows organizations to actively identify unseen threats, reinforcing the security measures in place and minimizing potential damage. It reduces the time for threat detection and response.

How Threat Hunting Works:
Initially, it starts by defining the goal or the threat. Then it proceeds with collecting the relevant data, analyzing it, and creating a hypothesis. After thorough scrutiny, if the hypothesis is accurate, the team moves to the mitigation process. Incorrect hypotheses result in reevaluation. The final step is preparing for future attacks.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Threat Hunting:

Read the question carefully, many times the details provided would guide you towards the correct answer.
Understand the primary stages of Threat Hunting: Goal definition, data collection, analysis, hypothesis, mitigation, learning.
Be aware of the importance of proactive and iterative search in threat hunting.
Remember that threat hunting is a proactive strategy not reactive and emphasizes on threats that have bypassed other controls.

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Question 1

A global financial institution has been experiencing multiple cyber attacks in recent months. They need to perform pro-active threat hunting. Which technique is most suitable for finding threats in the organization?

Heuristic detection Automated threat detection Signature-based detection User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)

Correct Answer: User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)

UEBA helps in understanding baseline activities and detecting anomalies, which is more effective for proactive threat hunting. The other techniques are reactive and are not proactive in finding threats.

Question 2

A company had a major breach in their network. The IT Security team discovers suspicious activity and believes malware is hiding in the network. Which threat hunting method is most effective in this scenario?

Data-driven alerting Situational awareness Hypothesis-driven approach Indicators of compromise (IOC) search

Correct Answer: Hypothesis-driven approach

A hypothesis-driven approach is an educated guess about a possible threat. The team focuses on the specific scenario and investigates to validate or refute the hypothesis. The other methods are not as effective or specific for the given scenario.

Question 3

A large organization has regular and extensive network traffic. They want to detect threats at an early stage. What tool is best suited for detecting advanced threats?

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Firewall Intrusion Detection System (IDS) Antivirus software

Correct Answer: Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)

NTA analyzes the network traffic to detect advanced threat patterns and malicious activities. The other tools are not capable of deep analysis or detecting advanced threats based on traffic patterns.

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