CYBRARY The file is the campaign
One attachment name links every mailbox that received it; the sender address changes far more easily than the payload.
C-357·Cross-platform·30 min
The invoice that asked to be enabled Start this lab
A finance clerk opened a macro-enabled invoice from an external sender and clicked through the warning. Name the file, judge it against the invoices this team receives every day, and clear the same message from every other mailbox it reached.
Mission brief · C-357
Tier 3 analyst on the incident response bench
Tier 3 — deep host and forensics
Business important
Track default
You are acting as
the break-glass IR account `svc-ir`, checked out of the vault for this incident — never the compromised identity
How you got here
The detection fired in the EDR console. You opened a live-response session from that detection, so your shell rides the EDR agent channel — containing the host will *not* cut you off, which is exactly why you contain from here rather than over SSH.
Your access
EDR console (detections + live response)
Endpoint detection & response
- Read the detection and process tree
- Look up host criticality, owner and VIP flags
- Open a live-response session on the host
- Contain the host over the agent channel
- Not yours: Disable user accounts (that's the identity team)
- Not yours: Delete evidence
Live-response shell on the affected host
Host shell session
- Read the filesystem, logs and running state
- Collect a triage package
- Not yours: Reboot or reimage without owner approval
What's at stake
The affected host
Owner: The system's business owner, named on the asset record
Containing a host you haven't identified can stop revenue. Check criticality and owner before you isolate anything.
Rules of engagement
You may act alone
- Investigate from the live-response session
- Collect evidence and triage packages
- Contain a standard-criticality host
Ask a human first
- Containing a mission-critical host — asset owner and on-call manager first
- Disabling a user identity — identity team, and HR/legal if it looks like an insider
Why this matters
Most intrusions still start with a person opening a file they were asked to open, so the response is a campaign clean-up, not a single machine clean-up.
Concepts
Legitimate lookalikes
Teams that receive documents all day cannot treat a document as suspicious by itself — behavior after opening decides.
Clean every copy
A cleaned endpoint means nothing while the same message sits unread in other mailboxes.
Objectives graded
- Name the attachment that was opened
- Judge it against the invoices this team legitimately receives
- Remove the message from every mailbox it reached
Incident timeline
Relative to the moment the alert fired. One of these beats is ordinary activity.
- −34mA supplier-styled mail with a macro-enabled attachment reaches 14 mailboxesMail gatewayT1566.001
- −18mThe invoice intake service opens twelve ordinary supplier invoicesMail gatewayordinary activity
- −3mThe clerk opens the attachment and enables contentEDRT1204.002
- alertThe document process starts a shell and the alert firesEDRT1059.001
- +6mThe same message is still sitting unread in eleven other mailboxesMail gatewayT1566.001
Live walkthrough
The reference response, executed by the same engine that grades your attempt. Yours will differ — the rubric reads end state and evidence, not the shape of your workflow.
- 1.Approve consequential actionpromptapproval gateApprove consequential action
- 2.Write case field credentialRefactioncredentialRef → vault/soc-automation
- 3.Attach evidence: case/soar-c-357/evidenceactionThe learner attached at least one linkable piece of evidence to the case.
- 4.Write case field closureNoteactionclosureNote → written
- 5.Write case field attachmentNameactionattachmentName → Invoice_2026-03.xlsm
- 6.verdict on ind-phish-attachactionind-phish-attach.verdict → malicious
- 7.mailPurged on hst-nw-wks31actionapproval gatehst-nw-wks31.mailPurged → true
Gate approved — 100%
12 of 12 rubric rules hold.
Gate denied — 79%
Refusing the consequential action is a defensible choice with a measured cost; the difference is what the lab is teaching.
- pass behavior · The workflow reached a terminal success state on the graded run.
- pass safety · A consequential action passed through a human approval gate.
- pass efficiency · No non-idempotent operation was retried without an idempotency key.
- pass configuration · Every action node resolves its secret from the vault, never an inline field.
- pass investigation · The learner attached at least one linkable piece of evidence to the case.
- pass explanation · The case carries an analyst closure note explaining the outcome.
- pass behavior · No innocent asset in the alert batch was contained, disabled or revoked.
- pass configuration · The playbook survived the integration faults it met and still finished.
- pass investigation · Nothing was changed in the estate before evidence had been gathered.
- pass investigation · The learner named the attachment that was opened, not the sending domain.
- pass investigation · The attachment was judged apart from the genuine invoices arriving alongside it.
- pass behavior · The message was removed from every mailbox it reached, not just this one.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
A macro-enabled attachment opened by hand, with the same message still waiting in eleven other mailboxes.
| Technique | Name | Tactic |
|---|---|---|
| T1566.001 | Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment | Initial Access |
| T1204.002 | User Execution: Malicious File | Execution |
| T1059.001 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell | Execution |
What each rubric rule proves
The workflow reached a terminal success state on the graded run.
behavior · weight 20
A consequential action passed through a human approval gate.
safety · weight 15
No non-idempotent operation was retried without an idempotency key.
efficiency · weight 10
Every action node resolves its secret from the vault, never an inline field.
configuration · weight 10
The learner attached at least one linkable piece of evidence to the case.
investigation · weight 10
The case carries an analyst closure note explaining the outcome.
explanation · weight 10
No innocent asset in the alert batch was contained, disabled or revoked.
behavior · weight 15
The playbook survived the integration faults it met and still finished.
configuration · weight 15
Nothing was changed in the estate before evidence had been gathered.
investigation · weight 10
The learner named the attachment that was opened, not the sending domain.
investigation · weight 20 · T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment (Initial Access)
The attachment was judged apart from the genuine invoices arriving alongside it.
investigation · weight 15 · T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File (Execution)
The message was removed from every mailbox it reached, not just this one.
behavior · weight 20 · T1059.001 Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell (Execution)
Common mistakes
- Closing the case after reimaging the one machine that opened it.
- Blocking the sending domain and calling that eradication.
Same idea, three vendors
Vocabulary is generated from the teaching profiles, so it always matches what the consoles render.
| Concept | Cortex Forge | Summit SOAR | Storyline |
|---|---|---|---|
| case | Incident | Container | Case |
| alert | Alert | Event | Event |
| artifact | Indicator | Artifact | Record |
| workflow | Playbook | Playbook | Story |
| workflow-run | Playbook run | Playbook debug run | Story run |
| node | Task | Block | Action |
| connector | Integration | App | Credential-backed action |
| connector-instance | Integration instance | Asset | Resource |
| credential | Credential | Asset credential | Credential |
| approval | Manual task | Prompt | Page |
| child-workflow | Sub-playbook | Child playbook | Sub-story |
| context-path | Context path | Datapath | Event path |
| queue | Incidents | Events | Cases |
| task | Work Plan task | Task | Case task |
| note | War Room entry | Note | Case note |
Where does this value come from?
The same reference to an enrichment node's verdict, written three ways:
- Cortex Forge: ${enrich-sender.verdict}
- Summit SOAR: enrich-sender.verdict
- Storyline: <<enrich-sender.verdict>>
The same concepts in shipping products
The consoles you practice in use teaching names. These are the words the real vendors print in their own documentation, so the vocabulary survives the day you sit in front of a production tenant.
| Concept | Cortex XSOARXSOAR 8.x | Splunk SOARSplunk SOAR 6.x (formerly Phantom) | TinesTines (2026 cloud) | Microsoft Sentinel + Logic AppsSentinel (Defender portal, 2026) | Google SecOps SOARSecOps SOAR (formerly Siemplify) | Swimlane TurbineTurbine (2026) | Torq HyperautomationTorq (2026) | IBM QRadar SOARQRadar SOAR (Resilient) 51.x | ServiceNow Security OperationsSecOps (Flow Designer era) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| case | Incident | Container | Case | Incident | Case | Record | Case | Incident | Security incident (SIR) |
| alert | Alert | Event | Event | Alert | Alert | Inbound record / signal | Trigger event | Escalated offense / alert | Security alert |
| artifact | Indicator | Artifact (CEF fields) | Event payload field | Entity | Entity | Field / correlation value | Event field | Artifact | Observable |
| workflow | Playbook | Playbook | Story | Playbook (Logic App) | Playbook | Playbook | Workflow | Workflow (BPMN) | Flow / subflow |
| workflow-run | Playbook run | Playbook run / debug run | Event flow | Logic App run | Playbook execution | Playbook execution | Execution | Workflow execution | Flow execution |
| node | Task | Block | Action | Action / step | Action / step | Action | Step | Function / script | Flow action |
| connector | Integration | App | HTTP Request action / Tool | Connector | Integration | Integration | Integration | App | Spoke |
| connector-instance | Integration instance | Asset | Credential + resource pair | API connection | Integration instance (environment-scoped) | Asset | Integration connection | App configuration (app.config) | Connection & credential alias |
| credential | Credential | Asset configuration secret | Credential | Managed identity / connection secret | Integration parameter (secret) | Vault secret | Secret | App host secret | Credential record |
| approval | Manual (data collection) task | Prompt block | Page (form) / Send to Chat | Approval action (Teams / email) | Manual action | Task / approval action | Approval step (Torq Chat / Slack) | Manual task / phase gate | Approval activity |
| child-workflow | Sub-playbook | Child playbook | Send to Story | Nested Logic App | Block | Sub-playbook | Nested workflow | Called workflow | Subflow |
| context-path | Context path (${...}) | Datapath | Formula (<<path.to.value>>) | Expression (@{body('step')}) | Placeholder ([Entity.Identifier]) | Reference ($record.field) | Expression ({{ .event.field }}) | Rule/script object (incident.properties) | Data pill |
| queue | Incidents view | Event / Case list | Cases | Incidents grid | Cases queue | Application workspace | Cases | Incident list | SIR queue |
| task | Work Plan task | Task (workbook phase) | Case task | Incident task | Task | Task | Case task | Task (within phase) | Response task |
| note | War Room entry | Note | Case note | Comment | Case wall comment | Comment | Case comment | Note | Work note |
What transfers
The same clean-up shape applies to malicious links, calendar invites and chat file shares.