ECCouncil Certified SOC Analyst (CSA) 312-39 Exam Dumps: Updated Questions & Answers (October 2025)

Ingesting context data can significantly reduce the burden of investigating false positives in a Security Operations Center (SOC). Context data provides additional information that can help differentiate between true threats and benign anomalies. By analyzing context data, such as user behavior, network traffic patterns, and threat intelligence, SOC analysts can apply a more targeted approach to threat detection. This allows for more accurate alerts, reducing the time and resources spent on investigating false positives.

References: The importance of context in threat detection is highlighted in EC-Council’s resources, where it is stated that traditional security tools often generate a lot of noise and false positives, making it difficult for SOCs to distinguish real threats from benign events1. Additionally, leveraging threat intelligence and fine-tuning detection rules are recommended strategies for reducing false positives2. These practices are in line with the EC-Council’s Certified SOC Analyst (CSA) course and study guides, which emphasize the need for context-aware security measures in modern SOC operations.

UrlScan is a security tool that screens all incoming requests to a server and filters these requests based on rules set by the administrator. It is particularly effective against SQL Injection attacks because it can block requests that appear to be malicious, such as those containing SQL syntax or certain keywords often used in SQL Injection.

Nmap is a network scanning tool, not specifically designed for filtering web requests. ZAP Proxy is an open-source web application security scanner, which is used for finding vulnerabilities in web applications but not specifically for filtering requests. Hydra is a password cracking tool, which again, is not used for filtering web requests.

References: The answer is verified as per the EC-Council’s SOC Analyst course materials and learning resources, which include training on various security tools and their purposes. Specifically, the EC-Council’s SQL Injection Training and other related courses provide insights into the tools and techniques for defending against SQL Injection attacks123.

Bad bots are automated software that perform tasks over the internet, which can sometimes be malicious, like scraping data, spamming, or carrying out credential stuffing attacks. To detect the traffic associated with Bad Bot User-Agents, web server logs are the most effective data source. These logs record all the requests made to the web server, including the User-Agent string that identifies the type of client making the request. By analyzing these logs, SOC analysts can identify patterns and behaviors indicative of bad bots, such as high request rates, unusual access patterns, or known malicious User-Agent strings.

References: The EC-Council’s Certified SOC Analyst (CSA) program covers the fundamentals of SOC operations, including log management and correlation, which is essential for detecting bad bots. The CSA certification program provides the knowledge required to use various tools and techniques for monitoring and analyzing web server logs for potential threats. For more detailed information, refer to the official EC-Council SOC Analyst study guides and training resources1234.

PCI-DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. It is a set of security standards designed to ensure that all companies that accept, process, store, or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. The PCI-DSS is a widely recognized set of guidelines that includes requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design, and other critical protective measures. This comprehensive standard is intended to help organizations proactively protect customer account data.

References: The EC-Council’s Certified SOC Analyst (CSA) course materials and study guides include information on various security standards, including PCI-DSS, which is specifically focused on the protection of account data. The course would cover the importance of adhering to such standards to ensure the security and integrity of sensitive payment card information1234.

SIEM Agents are primarily responsible for the initial stages of data processing within a SIEM system. Their duties include:

Collecting data: SIEM Agents collect logs and other data from various devices across the network. This is a crucial step as it ensures that all relevant data is gathered for analysis.

Normalizing data: Once the data is collected, SIEM Agents normalize it, which means they convert different log and data formats into a standardized format. This process is essential for the SIEM’s central engine to analyze and correlate the data effectively.

The responsibilities of SIEM Agents generally do not include correlating data (which is typically done by the central SIEM engine) or visualizing data (which is usually a function of the SIEM’s user interface or reporting tools).

References: The roles and responsibilities of SIEM Agents are outlined in EC-Council’s SOC Analyst course materials and official certification guides. These resources emphasize the importance of data collection and normalization as foundational tasks performed by SIEM Agents in a Security Operations Center (SOC)12.

A Hybrid Attack is a type of cyber attack that combines elements of a dictionary attack with a brute force attack. It involves taking words from a dictionary (which could be a list of common passwords or related words) and augmenting them with numbers and symbols to generate potential passwords. This method increases the chances of cracking a password by including the common variations that users often add to their passwords to meet complexity requirements.

References: The EC-Council’s Certified SOC Analyst (CSA) resources describe various types of attacks and their methodologies. According to these resources, a Hybrid Attack specifically refers to this combined approach, which is more sophisticated than a simple dictionary attack and is designed to overcome the limitations of dictionary attacks by including additional characters1.

Juliea, the SOC analyst, noticed large TXT and NULL payloads in the logs. This is indicative of a DNS exfiltration attempt. DNS exfiltration is a type of cyber attack where an attacker uses the DNS protocol to sneak data out of a network undetected. It typically involves the use of large TXT records, which can be used to carry data out of the network. NULL payloads can be used in this context to pad the DNS queries and make them less suspicious or to bypass security controls that inspect the content of DNS queries.

The steps involved in DNS exfiltration include:

The attacker compromises a system within the target network.

Malware on the compromised system encodes the data it wants to exfiltrate.

The encoded data is split into chunks that fit into DNS query sizes.

These chunks are sent as data in DNS queries or responses, often using TXT records.

An external attacker-controlled server receives the DNS queries and decodes the data.

References:

EC-Council’s Certified SOC Analyst (CSA) course material and study guides provide detailed information on various types of cyber attacks, including DNS exfiltration.

Online resources and practice questions for the Certified SOC Analyst (CSA) exam also cover this topic and can be used to verify the answer123.

Additional information on DNS exfiltration techniques and detection methods can be found in security blogs and articles that discuss the subject in depth456.

Planning and budgeting: This is the initial phase where you determine the scope, objectives, and financial resources available for the lab.

Physical location and structural design considerations: Selecting a suitable location and designing the lab to meet operational needs and security requirements.

Work area considerations: Organizing the space efficiently for different tasks such as evidence analysis, storage, and administrative work.

Human resource considerations: Identifying the roles, responsibilities, and qualifications required for lab personnel.

Physical security recommendations: Implementing measures to protect sensitive data and physical assets within the lab.

Forensics lab licensing: Ensuring that the lab and its personnel are compliant with relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards.

References: While I can’t refer to specific EC-Council SOC Analyst courses or study guides, these steps are generally accepted as part of the process for setting up a computer forensics lab. For detailed guidance, it’s best to consult the official EC-Council resources and materials provided for the SOC Analyst certification.

Graphical user interface Description automatically generated with low confidence

In the context of log storage, a circular buffer is a data structure that uses a single, fixed-size buffer as if it were connected end-to-end. This structure lends itself to buffering streams of data, where the data is written to the buffer and read from it in a potentially non-sequential manner. When the buffer is full, new data is written starting at the beginning of the buffer, and thus ‘wraps’ around. This is why the method is referred to as ‘wrapping’. FIFO (First In, First Out) and LIFO (Last In, First Out) are queueing methods, and non-wrapping implies that the buffer does not overwrite existing data when full.

References: The answer can be verified through EC-Council’s SOC Analyst study materials and official courseware, which detail various log storage methods and their characteristics. Additionally, the concept of a circular buffer is a well-known data structure in computer science, often discussed in the context of system design and memory management.

 For Internet Information Service (IIS) version 7.0, the default location for web server logs is in the directory %SystemDrive%\inetpub\logs\LogFiles. Within this directory, you will find subfolders named W3SVCN, where N is a number that corresponds to the site ID of the IIS instance. These folders contain the log files for each website hosted on the server. Harley, as a SOC analyst, can investigate these logs for any anomalies by accessing this path.

References: The information provided aligns with the standard practices and configurations for IIS 7.0 as outlined in Microsoft’s official documentation123. These references are part of the learning resources for understanding the management and structure of IIS logs, which are crucial for a SOC Analyst’s role in monitoring and analyzing web server activity for security purposes. The EC-Council’s SOC Analyst course and study guides also emphasize the importance of log file analysis in identifying and responding to security incidents.