Build your organization's cyber defense system by effectively applying digital forensics, incident management, and investigation techniques to real-world cyber threats Key Features Create a solid incident response framework and manage cyber incidents effectively Learn to apply digital forensics tools and techniques to investigate cyber threats Explore the real-world threat of ransomware and apply proper incident response techniques for investigation and recovery Book DescriptionAn understanding of how digital forensics integrates with the overall response to cybersecurity incidents is key to securing your organization's infrastructure from attacks. This updated third edition will help you perform cutting-edge digital forensic activities and incident response with a new focus on responding to ransomware attacks. After covering the fundamentals of incident response that are critical to any information security team, you'll explore incident response frameworks. From understanding their importance to creating a swift and effective response to security incidents, the book will guide you using examples. Later, you'll cover digital forensic techniques, from acquiring evidence and examining volatile memory through to hard drive examination and network-based evidence. You'll be able to apply these techniques to the current threat of ransomware. As you progress, you'll discover the role that threat intelligence plays in the incident response process. You'll also learn how to prepare an incident response report that documents the findings of your analysis. Finally, in addition to various incident response activities, the book will address malware analysis and demonstrate how you can proactively use your digital forensic skills in threat hunting. By the end of this book, you'll be able to investigate and report unwanted security breaches and incidents in your organization. What you will learn Create and deploy an incident response capability within your own organization Perform proper evidence acquisition and handling Analyze the evidence collected and determine the root cause of a security incident Integrate digital forensic techniques and procedures into the overall incident response process Understand different techniques for threat hunting Write incident reports that document the key findings of your analysis Apply incident response practices to ransomware attacks Leverage cyber threat intelligence to augment digital forensics findings Who this book is forThis book is for cybersecurity and information security professionals who want to implement digital forensics and incident response in their organizations. You'll also find the book helpful if you're new to the concept of digital forensics and looking to get started with the fundamentals. A basic understanding of operating systems and some knowledge of networking fundamentals are required to get started with this book.

Leverage cyber threat intelligence and the MITRE framework to enhance your prevention mechanisms, detection capabilities, and learn top adversarial simulation and emulation techniques Key Features Apply real-world strategies to strengthen the capabilities of your organization's security system Learn to not only defend your system but also think from an attacker's perspective Ensure the ultimate effectiveness of an organization's red and blue teams with practical tips Book DescriptionWith small to large companies focusing on hardening their security systems, the term "purple team" has gained a lot of traction over the last couple of years. Purple teams represent a group of individuals responsible for securing an organization's environment using both red team and blue team testing and integration - if you're ready to join or advance their ranks, then this book is for you. Purple Team Strategies will get you up and running with the exact strategies and techniques used by purple teamers to implement and then maintain a robust environment. You'll start with planning and prioritizing adversary emulation, and explore concepts around building a purple team infrastructure as well as simulating and defending against the most trendy ATT&CK tactics. You'll also dive into performing assessments and continuous testing with breach and attack simulations. Once you've covered the fundamentals, you'll also learn tips and tricks to improve the overall maturity of your purple teaming capabilities along with measuring success with KPIs and reporting. With the help of real-world use cases and examples, by the end of this book, you'll be able to integrate the best of both sides: red team tactics and blue team security measures. What you will learn Learn and implement the generic purple teaming process Use cloud environments for assessment and automation Integrate cyber threat intelligence as a process Configure traps inside the network to detect attackers Improve red and blue team collaboration with existing and new tools Perform assessments of your existing security controls Who this book is forIf you're a cybersecurity analyst, SOC engineer, security leader or strategist, or simply interested in learning about cyber attack and defense strategies, then this book is for you. Purple team members and chief information security officers (CISOs) looking at securing their organizations from adversaries will also benefit from this book. You'll need some basic knowledge of Windows and Linux operating systems along with a fair understanding of networking concepts before you can jump in, while ethical hacking and penetration testing know-how will help you get the most out of this book.

Escalate your privileges on Windows and Linux platforms with step-by-step instructions and deepen your theoretical foundations Key Features Discover a range of techniques to escalate privileges on Windows and Linux systems Understand the key differences between Windows and Linux privilege escalation Explore unique exploitation challenges in each chapter provided in the form of pre-built VMs Book DescriptionPrivilege Escalation Techniques is a detailed guide to privilege escalation techniques and tools for both Windows and Linux systems. This is a one-of-a-kind resource that will deepen your understanding of both platforms and provide detailed, easy-to-follow instructions for your first foray into privilege escalation. The book uses virtual environments that you can download to test and run tools and techniques. After a refresher on gaining access and surveying systems, each chapter will feature an exploitation challenge in the form of pre-built virtual machines (VMs). As you progress, you will learn how to enumerate and exploit a target Linux or Windows system. You'll then get a demonstration on how you can escalate your privileges to the highest level. By the end of this book, you will have gained all the knowledge and skills you need to be able to perform local kernel exploits, escalate privileges through vulnerabilities in services, maintain persistence, and enumerate information from the target such as passwords and password hashes. What you will learn Understand the privilege escalation process and set up a pentesting lab Gain an initial foothold on the system Perform local enumeration on target systems Exploit kernel vulnerabilities on Windows and Linux systems Perform privilege escalation through password looting and finding stored credentials Get to grips with performing impersonation attacks Exploit Windows services such as the secondary logon handle service to escalate Windows privileges Escalate Linux privileges by exploiting scheduled tasks and SUID binaries Who this book is forIf you're a pentester or a cybersecurity student interested in learning how to perform various privilege escalation techniques on Windows and Linux systems - including exploiting bugs and design flaws - then this book is for you. You'll need a solid grasp on how Windows and Linux systems work along with fundamental cybersecurity knowledge before you get started.

A practical guide to enhancing your digital investigations with cutting-edge memory forensics techniques Key Features Explore memory forensics, one of the vital branches of digital investigation Learn the art of user activities reconstruction and malware detection using volatile memory Get acquainted with a range of open-source tools and techniques for memory forensics Book DescriptionMemory Forensics is a powerful analysis technique that can be used in different areas, from incident response to malware analysis. With memory forensics, you can not only gain key insights into the user's context but also look for unique traces of malware, in some cases, to piece together the puzzle of a sophisticated targeted attack. Starting with an introduction to memory forensics, this book will gradually take you through more modern concepts of hunting and investigating advanced malware using free tools and memory analysis frameworks. This book takes a practical approach and uses memory images from real incidents to help you gain a better understanding of the subject and develop the skills required to investigate and respond to malware-related incidents and complex targeted attacks. You'll cover Windows, Linux, and macOS internals and explore techniques and tools to detect, investigate, and hunt threats using memory forensics. Equipped with this knowledge, you'll be able to create and analyze memory dumps on your own, examine user activity, detect traces of fileless and memory-based malware, and reconstruct the actions taken by threat actors. By the end of this book, you'll be well-versed in memory forensics and have gained hands-on experience of using various tools associated with it. What you will learn Understand the fundamental concepts of memory organization Discover how to perform a forensic investigation of random access memory Create full memory dumps as well as dumps of individual processes in Windows, Linux, and macOS Analyze hibernation files, swap files, and crash dumps Apply various methods to analyze user activities Use multiple approaches to search for traces of malicious activity Reconstruct threat actor tactics and techniques using random access memory analysis Who this book is forThis book is for incident responders, digital forensic specialists, cybersecurity analysts, system administrators, malware analysts, students, and curious security professionals new to this field and interested in learning memory forensics. A basic understanding of malware and its working is expected. Although not mandatory, knowledge of operating systems internals will be helpful. For those new to this field, the book covers all the necessary concepts.

Learn to identify security incidents and build a series of best practices to stop cyber attacks before they create serious consequences Key Features Discover Incident Response (IR), from its evolution to implementation Understand cybersecurity essentials and IR best practices through real-world phishing incident scenarios Explore the current challenges in IR through the perspectives of leading experts Book DescriptionCybercriminals are always in search of new methods to infiltrate systems. Quickly responding to an incident will help organizations minimize losses, decrease vulnerabilities, and rebuild services and processes. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with most organizations gravitating towards remote working and cloud computing, this book uses frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK (R) and the SANS IR model to assess security risks. The book begins by introducing you to the cybersecurity landscape and explaining why IR matters. You will understand the evolution of IR, current challenges, key metrics, and the composition of an IR team, along with an array of methods and tools used in an effective IR process. You will then learn how to apply these strategies, with discussions on incident alerting, handling, investigation, recovery, and reporting. Further, you will cover governing IR on multiple platforms and sharing cyber threat intelligence and the procedures involved in IR in the cloud. Finally, the book concludes with an "Ask the Experts" chapter wherein industry experts have provided their perspective on diverse topics in the IR sphere. By the end of this book, you should become proficient at building and applying IR strategies pre-emptively and confidently. What you will learn Understand IR and its significance Organize an IR team Explore best practices for managing attack situations with your IR team Form, organize, and operate a product security team to deal with product vulnerabilities and assess their severity Organize all the entities involved in product security response Respond to security vulnerabilities using tools developed by Keepnet Labs and Binalyze Adapt all the above learnings for the cloud Who this book is forThis book is aimed at first-time incident responders, cybersecurity enthusiasts who want to get into IR, and anyone who is responsible for maintaining business security. It will also interest CIOs, CISOs, and members of IR, SOC, and CSIRT teams. However, IR is not just about information technology or security teams, and anyone with a legal, HR, media, or other active business role would benefit from this book. The book assumes you have some admin experience. No prior DFIR experience is required. Some infosec knowledge will be a plus but isn't mandatory.

Analyze malicious samples, write reports, and use industry-standard methodologies to confidently triage and analyze adversarial software and malware Key Features Investigate, detect, and respond to various types of malware threat Understand how to use what you've learned as an analyst to produce actionable IOCs and reporting Explore complete solutions, detailed walkthroughs, and case studies of real-world malware samples Book DescriptionMalicious software poses a threat to every enterprise globally. Its growth is costing businesses millions of dollars due to currency theft as a result of ransomware and lost productivity. With this book, you'll learn how to quickly triage, identify, attribute, and remediate threats using proven analysis techniques. Malware Analysis Techniques begins with an overview of the nature of malware, the current threat landscape, and its impact on businesses. Once you've covered the basics of malware, you'll move on to discover more about the technical nature of malicious software, including static characteristics and dynamic attack methods within the MITRE ATT&CK framework. You'll also find out how to perform practical malware analysis by applying all that you've learned to attribute the malware to a specific threat and weaponize the adversary's indicators of compromise (IOCs) and methodology against them to prevent them from attacking. Finally, you'll get to grips with common tooling utilized by professional malware analysts and understand the basics of reverse engineering with the NSA's Ghidra platform. By the end of this malware analysis book, you'll be able to perform in-depth static and dynamic analysis and automate key tasks for improved defense against attacks. What you will learn Discover how to maintain a safe analysis environment for malware samples Get to grips with static and dynamic analysis techniques for collecting IOCs Reverse-engineer and debug malware to understand its purpose Develop a well-polished workflow for malware analysis Understand when and where to implement automation to react quickly to threats Perform malware analysis tasks such as code analysis and API inspection Who this book is forThis book is for incident response professionals, malware analysts, and researchers who want to sharpen their skillset or are looking for a reference for common static and dynamic analysis techniques. Beginners will also find this book useful to get started with learning about malware analysis. Basic knowledge of command-line interfaces, familiarity with Windows and Unix-like filesystems and registries, and experience in scripting languages such as PowerShell, Python, or Ruby will assist with understanding the concepts covered.