The victim is not the finding
The trusted process is borrowed; the module written into it is the artifact to chase.
A program wrote code into a trusted Windows process and let that process do the work, so the network connections belong to something nobody would question. Name what was injected, judge it against the endpoint sensor that reads memory legitimately, and isolate the machine.
Mission brief · C-358
the break-glass IR account `svc-ir`, checked out of the vault for this incident — never the compromised identity
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.
EDR console (detections + live response)
Endpoint detection & response
Live-response shell on the affected host
Host shell session
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.
You may act alone
Ask a human first
Injection breaks the assumption that a process's behavior belongs to its own code, so process names stop being evidence.
The trusted process is borrowed; the module written into it is the artifact to chase.
Security agents and debuggers read other processes all day — who did the writing matters more than that writing happened.
Killing the host process loses the evidence and leaves whatever re-injects it running.
Relative to the moment the alert fired. One of these beats is ordinary activity.
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.
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.
Code written into a trusted process, so the outbound session belongs to something nobody questions.
| Technique | Name | Tactic |
|---|---|---|
| T1055.001 | Process Injection: Dynamic-link Library Injection | Defense Evasion |
| T1071.001 | Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols | Command and Control |
| T1070.004 | Indicator Removal: File Deletion | Defense Evasion |
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 injected module rather than the host process it landed in.
investigation · weight 20 · T1055.001 Process Injection: Dynamic-link Library Injection (Defense Evasion)
Memory access by the attacker was told apart from the sensor's own scanning.
investigation · weight 15 · T1070.004 Indicator Removal: File Deletion (Defense Evasion)
The machine was isolated while the injected thread was still running.
behavior · weight 20 · T1071.001 Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols (Command and Control)
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 |
The same reference to an enrichment node's verdict, written three ways:
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 |
Hollowed processes, reflective loading and library hijacking all present the same way to the analyst.