Online 312-40 Questions Video

• Amazon GuardDuty: It is a threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior across your AWS accounts and workloads1.
• Continuous Monitoring: GuardDuty keeps an eye on the cloud environment for potential threats by analyzing various data sources, including VPC flow logs, CloudTrail event logs, and DNS logs1.
• Alerts for Risks: When GuardDuty detects a potential threat or misconfiguration, it generates detailed security findings, which can be used to notify administrators like Jonathan of the risks1.
• Machine Learning and Threat Intelligence: The service uses machine learning and integrated threat intelligence to identify and classify threats, providing actionable insights for remediation1.
• Integration with AWS Services: GuardDuty can integrate with other AWS services such as Amazon SNS for notifications, enabling automated responses to detected threats1.

References:

• AWS’s official documentation on Amazon GuardDuty1.

The process that Susan, a cloud security engineer, is performing by reviewing the list of publicly accessible resources, security groups, routing tables, ACLs, subnets, and IAM policies is known as performing cloud reconnaissance.

• Cloud Reconnaissance: This term refers to the process of gathering information about the cloud environment to identify potential security issues. It involves examining the configurations and settings of cloud resources to detect any misconfigurations or vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers.
• Purpose of Cloud Reconnaissance:
• Outcome of Cloud Reconnaissance: The outcome of this process should be a comprehensive understanding of the cloud environment’s security posture, which can help in identifying and mitigating potential security risks.

References:

• Cloud Security Alliance: Cloud Reconnaissance and Security Best Practices.
• NIST Cloud Computing Security Reference Architecture.

In the context of forensic acquisition of a compromised Azure VM, it is crucial to maintain the integrity of the evidence. The backup copy of the snapshot should be taken before any operations that could potentially alter the data are performed. This means creating the backup copy in a blob container as a page blob before mounting the snapshot onto the forensic workstation.

Here’s the process:

• Create Snapshot: First, a snapshot of the VM’s disk is created to capture the state of the VM at the point of compromise.
• Backup Copy: Before the snapshot is mounted onto the forensic workstation for analysis, a backup copy of the snapshot should be taken and stored in a blob container as a page blob.
• Maintain Integrity: This step ensures that the original snapshot remains unaltered and can be used as evidence, maintaining the chain of custody.
• Forensic Analysis: After the backup copy is secured, the snapshot can be mounted onto the forensic workstation for detailed analysis.
• Documentation: All steps taken during the forensic acquisition process should be thoroughly documented for legal and compliance purposes.

References:

• Microsoft’s guidelines on the computer forensics chain of custody in Azure, which include the process of handling VM snapshots for forensic purposes1.

The Google Cloud Security Command Center (Cloud SCC) is the tool designed to provide a centralized dashboard for viewing and monitoring sensitive data, scanning storage systems, and reviewing access rights to critical resources.

• Centralized Dashboard: Cloud SCC offers a comprehensive view of the security status of your resources in Google Cloud, across all your projects and services1.
• Sensitive Data Scanning: It has capabilities for scanning storage systems to identify sensitive data, such as personally identifiable information (PII), and can provide insights into where this data is stored1.
• Access Rights Review: Cloud SCC allows you to review who has access to your critical resources and whether any policies or permissions should be adjusted to enhance security1.
• Alerts and Incident Response: In the event of a potential breach, Cloud SCC can help identify the affected resources and assist in the investigation and response process1.

References:Google Cloud Security Command Center is a security management and data risk platform for Google Cloud that helps you prevent, detect, and respond to threats from a single pane of glass. It provides security insights and features like asset inventory, discovery, search, and management; vulnerability and threat detection; and compliance monitoring to protect your services and applications on Google Cloud1.