ECCouncil 212-89 - EC Council Certified Incident Handler (ECIH v3)

This scenario is a clear example of a deceptive phishing attack, which is extensively covered in the ECIH Email Security Incident module. Deceptive phishing involves impersonating a trusted internal entity—such as HR—to trick recipients into disclosing sensitive information like credentials or personal data.

Option D is correct because the email impersonates HR, uses social engineering, and directs users to a visually identical but fraudulent login page hosted on an unfamiliar domain. These characteristics are classic indicators of deceptive phishing.

Option A refers to DNS manipulation and is not evidenced here. Option B involves overwhelming email volume rather than deception. Option C refers to unsolicited bulk email without impersonation.

Elena’s actions align with ECIH best practices: preserving headers for forensic validation, capturing screenshots to document fraudulent infrastructure, and blocking malicious domains to prevent further exposure. Correctly categorizing the incident as deceptive phishing ensures appropriate eradication, awareness, and reporting measures.

Risk assessment is the risk management process that involves identifying risks, estimating their impact on the organization, and determining the sources of those risks to recommend appropriate mitigation measures. The goal of a risk assessment is to understand the nature of potential threats, vulnerabilities, and the consequences of those risks materializing, allowing an organization to make informed decisions about how to address them effectively. Risk assumption involves accepting the potential impact of a risk, risk mitigation focuses on reducing the likelihood or impact of risks, and risk avoidance involves taking actions to avoid the risk entirely.

The Slowloris attack is a type of application-layer attack that targets the web server by establishing and maintaining many simultaneous HTTP connections to the target server. Unlike traditional network-layer DoS/DDoS attacks such as UDP flood or SYN flood, Slowloris is designed to hold as many connections to the target web server open for as long as possible. It does so by sending partial requests, which are never completed, and periodically sending subsequent HTTP headers to keep the connections open. This consumes the server's resources, leading to denial of service as legitimate users cannot establish connections. The Slowloris attack is effective even against servers with a high bandwidth because it targets the server's connection pool, not its network bandwidth.

The correct flow of stages in an Incident Handling and Response (IH&R) process as outlined in the Incident Handler (ECIH v3) by EC-Council begins with Preparation. This phase involves getting ready for potential incidents by developing plans, policies, and procedures, and ensuring that tools and team training are up to date. Incident Recording is the next stage, where incidents are documented and reported. Incident Triage follows, prioritizing incidents based on their impact and urgency. Containment is next, aiming to limit the damage of the incident and prevent further spread. Eradication comes after containment, where the root cause of the incident is removed. Recovery is the stage where affected systems are restored to their operational status. Post-Incident Activities conclude the process, reviewing and learning from the incident to improve future response efforts.

Disabling security options such as two-factor authentication (2FA) and CAPTCHA is not a countermeasure to eradicate cloud security incidents. In fact, it is contrary to best security practices. 2FA adds an additional layer of security by requiring two forms of verification before granting access to an account or system. CAPTCHA helps prevent automated attacks by ensuring that the entity accessing the service is human. Both are important security measures that protect against unauthorized access and automated attacks, thereby enhancing cloud security.

For memory dump analysis, tools like Scylla and OllyDumpEx are more suited. These tools are designed to analyze and extract information from memory dumps, which can be crucial for understanding the state of a system at the time of an incident. Scylla is used for reconstructing imports in dumped binaries, while OllyDumpEx is an OllyDbg plugin used for dumping process memory. Both tools are valuable for incident handlers like Rinni who are performing memory dump analysis to uncover evidence or understand the behavior of malicious software.

This scenario reflects misuse of system resources, a category defined in ECIH network and endpoint incident classification.

Option C is correct because unauthorized software caused excessive CPU usage and system strain, violating acceptable use policies.

Options A, B, and D do not match the behavior described.

ECIH classifies such activity as a security incident because it impacts availability, performance, and risk exposure.

Eradication is the step in the incident handling and response process where the root cause of an incident is removed, and measures are taken to close all attack vectors to prevent similar incidents in the future. After an incident has been properly contained to stop it from spreading or causing further damage, the eradication phase focuses on eliminating the source of the incident. This could involve removing malware, closing vulnerabilities, or implementing stronger security measures to address the exploitation paths used by the attacker.

In the scenario with Raven, notifying service providers and developers of affected resources is part of the actions taken to address the root cause of the incident. This ensures that any vulnerabilities or issues that contributed to the incident are fixed. By working to remove the root cause and secure the system against similar attacks, Raven is effectively implementing the eradication step of the incident handling process.

Behavioral analysis is a technique used to detect insider threats by analyzing the behavior of employees, both individually and in group settings, to identify any actions that deviate from the norm. This method relies on monitoring and analyzing data related to user activities, access patterns, and other behaviors that could indicate malicious intent or a potential security risk from within the organization. Behavioral analysis can detect unusual access to sensitive data, abnormal data transfer activities, and other indicators of insider threats. This approach is proactive and can help in identifying potential insider threats before they result in significant harm to the organization.

An Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) device placed inline is best suited to block attacks on a network actively. Being inline allows the IPS to analyze and take action on the traffic as it passes through the device, effectively preventing malicious traffic from reaching its target. The IPS can detect and block a wide range of attacks in real-time by using various detection methods, such as signature-based detection, anomaly detection, and policy-based detection. Unlike Host-based Intrusion Prevention Systems (HIPS), web proxies, or load balancers, an inline IPS is specifically designed to inspect and act on incoming and outgoing network traffic to prevent attacks before they reach network devices or applications.