You're reading from Effective Threat Investigation for SOC Analysts The ultimate guide to examining various threats and attacker techniques using security logs

Product type Paperback

Published in Aug 2023

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781837634781

Length 314 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Concepts

Cybersecurity

Author (1):

Mostafa Yahia

View More author details

Table of Contents (22) Chapters

Preface

1. Part 1: Email Investigation Techniques

2. Chapter 1: Investigating Email Threats FREE CHAPTER

3. Chapter 2: Email Flow and Header Analysis

4. Part 2: Investigating Windows Threats by Using Event Logs

5. Chapter 3: Introduction to Windows Event Logs

6. Chapter 4: Tracking Accounts Login and Management

7. Chapter 5: Investigating Suspicious Process Execution Using Windows Event Logs

8. Chapter 6: Investigating PowerShell Event Logs

9. Chapter 7: Investigating Persistence and Lateral Movement Using Windows Event Logs

10. Part 3: Investigating Network Threats by Using Firewall and Proxy Logs

11. Chapter 8: Network Firewall Logs Analysis

12. Chapter 9: Investigating Cyber Threats by Using the Firewall Logs

13. Chapter 10: Web Proxy Logs Analysis

14. Chapter 11: Investigating Suspicious Outbound Communications (C&C Communications) by Using Proxy Logs

15. Part 4: Investigating Other Threats and Leveraging External Sources to Investigate Cyber Threats

16. Chapter 12: Investigating External Threats

17. Chapter 13: Investigating Network Flows and Security Solutions Alerts

18. Chapter 14: Threat Intelligence in a SOC Analyst’s Day

19. Chapter 15: Malware Sandboxing – Building a Malware Sandbox

20. Index

Why subscribe?

21. Other Books You May Enjoy

Investigating PowerShell Event Logs

Since 2017, security researchers have noted a high increase in the use of PowerShell during the different phases of the attack chain. Also, there are several ready-to-use PowerShell scripts and frameworks that help attackers to achieve their objectives such as stealing credentials, pivoting, internal discovery, and enumeration. As a SOC Analyst, you should have knowledge of PowerShell and its usages, along with how to investigate suspicious PowerShell activities and the event logs provided by Microsoft that help you to track and investigate suspicious PowerShell executions.

The objective of this chapter is to teach you what PowerShell is, why attackers prefer PowerShell, PowerShell’s usage in different attack phases, the events provided by Microsoft that allow you to track PowerShell execution activity, and examples of the techniques and command-line arguments of PowerShell attacks.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following...