Tripwire is a file integrity monitoring tool that helps detect unauthorized or suspicious changes to critical system configuration files. It compares the current state of files to known baselines and alerts administrators if any unauthorized changes are made.

In Linux, log entries for auditd (the audit daemon) are written to /var/log/audit/audit.log. This file contains detailed information about system activity, including security-related events, which is essential for auditing and monitoring purposes.

Dealing with systems that are suspected to be used to commit a crime: Incident response involves addressing systems that may be involved in criminal activity, helping to contain and investigate the incident.

Collecting data from computer media: This is a key part of the evidence-gathering phase of incident response, where forensic data is collected to understand the extent of the incident.

Dealing with systems suspected to be the victim of a crime: Incident response includes handling systems that are compromised or victims of a crime to prevent further damage and to restore security.

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Explanation

In Windows Server 2016, log files are stored in the C:\Windows\System32\winevt\Logs directory. This is the default location for event log files, which can be accessed and analyzed using Event Viewer or other monitoring tools.

The host that owns the IP address sends an ARP reply message with its physical address. Each host machine maintains a table, called ARP cache, used to convert MAC addresses to IP addresses. Since ARP is a stateless protocol, every time a host gets an ARP reply from another host, even though it has not sent an ARP request for that reply, it accepts that ARP entry and updates its ARP cache. The process of updating a target host’s ARP cache with a forged entry is referred to as poisoning.

Evaluating the success of the current incident response plan: After the incident, it's important to assess the effectiveness of the response to improve future incident handling.

Ensuring proper notifications have been made: It is crucial to notify the appropriate stakeholders, regulatory bodies, and possibly affected parties to comply with legal requirements and maintain transparency.

Restoring system and network connectivity: The primary goal during recovery is to restore operations by bringing systems and network connectivity back online as quickly as possible.

Regular training of users is the best way to prevent social engineering attacks. By educating employees on recognizing phishing attempts, pretexting, and other social engineering tactics, organizations can reduce the likelihood of users falling victim to such attacks. Training helps create awareness and empowers users to identify suspicious activities.

Separation of duties involves dividing responsibilities so that no single individual has control over all aspects of a task. This practice is used to prevent fraud, errors, or misuse by ensuring that multiple individuals are required to complete critical tasks.

Physical security measures are implemented when employees are assigned personal, unique badges to control access to physical locations, such as buildings or secure areas within an organization. These badges ensure that only authorized individuals can enter specific locations, enhancing the protection of the organization's assets and sensitive areas.

Encryption works by converting data into an unreadable format using a cryptographic algorithm and a key. The information can only be decrypted and returned to its original, readable form by someone who possesses the correct decryption key. This ensures that even if an attacker gains access to the encrypted data, they won't be able to make sense of it without the proper key.

Performing Vulnerability Assessments and Penetration Testing: These tools are used to identify weaknesses in the system configurations and test whether the IT systems are vulnerable to various security threats, which helps verify compliance with security policies.

Implementing Baseline Configuration Security Controls: Baseline configuration controls ensure that IT systems are set up according to predefined, secure configurations, which helps ensure compliance with organizational security policies and standards.

Bro (now known as Zeek): This is an open-source network monitoring tool that can be used as an IDS to analyze traffic and detect suspicious activity.

Snort: Snort is a widely used open-source IDS that can detect and prevent network intrusions by analyzing network traffic.

Suricata: Suricata is an open-source IDS/IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) that provides high-performance intrusion detection and network security monitoring.

Threat modeling is the process of identifying, categorizing, and analyzing potential threats to a system. It helps organizations understand the security risks they face and allows them to design controls to mitigate those risks proactively.

Vishing, or voice phishing, is a form of social engineering where an attacker uses phone calls to trick individuals into revealing sensitive information, such as personal details or login credentials.

According to SANS, an incident retrospective should be performed no later than two weeks from the end of the incident. This allows the team to review the response, identify lessons learned, and improve future incident handling while the details are still fresh.

An Incident Response Plan (IRP) helps IT security staff detect, respond to, and recover from a cyber attack. It outlines procedures for identifying and managing security incidents, minimizing damage, and restoring systems to normal operations. This plan is essential for an organization's ability to effectively handle cybersecurity threats.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) sets regulations and standards for the reliability and security of the bulk power system in the United States. Public utility providers in the energy sector must comply with NERC standards to ensure operational safety and prevent disruptions.

Random Access Memory (RAM) is considered the most volatile type of digital evidence because it is temporary storage that is wiped clean when the system is powered off or restarted. This makes it crucial for investigators to capture RAM contents as quickly as possible during an incident response, as it can contain valuable evidence, such as running processes and network connections.

Old or unused code can increase an attack surface because it may contain vulnerabilities that have not been addressed or patched. Attackers can exploit these vulnerabilities, especially if the code is not actively maintained or monitored.

Hashing and time-stamping are used to ensure the integrity of electronic evidence. By generating a hash value and recording a time stamp, it is possible to verify that the evidence has not been altered or tampered with, maintaining its authenticity and trustworthiness during investigations.

An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is designed to monitor network traffic and alert administrators about potential malicious activities or suspicious traffic without blocking them. It meets the organization's need for detection and alerting without taking action to block the malicious activity.

Brute force attack: This method involves trying all possible combinations of characters until the correct password is found.

Hybrid attack: This is a combination of both dictionary and brute force attacks, where common words are tried first, followed by variations.

Dictionary attack: This method uses a precompiled list of words (a dictionary) to guess a password, often targeting common words or phrases.

Baiting is a social engineering tactic in which an attacker entices the target with the promise of something desirable, such as free software or a service, in order to lure them into taking an action that compromises their security, such as downloading malicious software or providing sensitive information.

Volatility is a powerful memory forensics tool used to analyze a system's physical memory (RAM). It allows investigators to extract valuable information from memory dumps, such as running processes, network connections, and other artifacts that are crucial in a digital forensics investigation.

DNS (Domain Name System) is the best tool for resolving IP-based indicators to hostnames. It translates domain names (human-readable names) into IP addresses, and the reverse lookup process can resolve IP addresses back to hostnames, which would be helpful in this case for identifying the source of network-based indicators.