Challenge Overview

A user in your organization reported suspicious activity on their workstation shortly after opening an email attachment. Initial automated defenses flagged a potential malware infection. You have been tasked with performing a forensic analysis to determine the infection vector, timeline, persistence mechanism, and identify any Command and Control (C2) communication. You are provided with the following artifacts from the user's workstation (location: Desktop --> Artifacts), captured during the suspected infection window: A copy of the potentially malicious email attachment (e.g., a Word document). A Process Monitor (.pml) log capturing system activity. A network packet capture (.pcap) from the workstation. Your goal is to piece together the infection lifecycle using these artifacts, identify key indicators of compromise (IOCs), and answer questions about the malware's behavior (which, in a real CTF, might lead to finding a "flag").

What You Will Learn

  • Analyzing a suspicious email attachment to identify the initial infection vector and malicious behavior.
  • Examining Process Monitor (.pml) logs to reconstruct the malware execution timeline and identify persistence mechanisms.
  • Performing packet analysis on the provided .pcap file to detect Command and Control (C2) communication.
  • Correlating host and network artifacts to map the complete infection lifecycle.
  • Identifying key Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) to determine the malware’s behavior and impact.

Program Curriculum

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