Effective Threat Investigation for SOC Analysts: The ultimate guide to examining various threats and attacker techniques using security logs

As a Cyber Security Professional I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Lots and lots of training and classes never teaches you how do detect actual attacks nor describe the real behaviors that happen, this book is a absolute bargain of knowledge, essential for any analyst or engineer beginning in Cyber Security, Id even say it has more advanced knowledge than just beginning stuff. Knowing Windows Event Codes, how phishing works and more is core... Well done!

I truly enjoyed the book. I’ve been in a SOC for almost 4yrs and the material is well put together.Mostafa looks to have gained some inspiration from SANS books as his chapters are condensed in small sections but with value.Mostafa introduces common techniques threat actors use regarding malicious emails, how to investigate them, and resources/links to use. This investigation process is repeated throughout the chapters: to understand what is normal and what isn't—the steps to test your theory via looking at event IDs, suspicious artifacts/commands or other logs.He provides a lab set up to follow along with so the material hits home and students can understand his explanations.Ultimately, the book is a valuable resource to reference when investigating cases. Mostafa does a great job at providing areas to consider looking at and multiple resources a SOC analyst should have in their arsenal. Plus, THE HELK has plenty of datasets to keep practicing what was taught in the book.

A must read book for SOC analysts and blue teams to boost their skills in analyzing security logs and threat huntingA piece of art that would add a lot to any cybersecurity enthusiast

Good book to practice and improve skills set.

As an Information Security Specialist and Digital Forensic Analyst for many years now this book was a great way to refresh and sharpen my skillset. It was very informative and the breakdown of the scenarios reflects what you will encounter in the field. This book helped me to refresh some skills that I haven't used much and showed me some techniques that can make the investigation process much more efficient. Most Cybersecurity or SOC Analyst books just bombard you with information and it ends up feeling like drinking out of a firehouse. This book does a great job of balancing the information with real-life scenarios to help with the digestion of the data. It breaks down the contents in small ingestable bites instead of cramming everything in at once. This helps to make the reading experience enjoyable. Highly recommend this book for not only beginners but also veterans in the Cybersecurity field.

Effective Threat Investigation for SOC Analysts is an excellent resource and one of the most outstanding additions to my cybersecurity learning library. SOC Analyst roles , even at entry level, require a wealth of knowledge. The books two initial chapters go into email threats and header analysis. Windows event logs, access management and validation, investigating event logs and PowerShell event logs and indicators of persistence and lateral movement are covered with tips on indicators of compromise and investigatory means via event log are detailed in depth. Part 3 of the book covers Firewall and Proxy log analysis, Web proxy logs and Proxy logs to identify C2 communications. Part 4 goes into external threat investigations and network security alerts, using threat intelligence techniques and dynamic and static malware analysis.I have the kindle copy, which is great, but I actually feel this is one of those books I also want in print for quick/easy lookups off the shelf. Highly recommended addition to any Blue teamer library.

I work as a SOC Analyst at a "new" SOC. This book gave me a bit of insight into what I could be doing better or the things that we should be doing.This book has a lot of good information. I keep it in the office for the junior analysts to read and use as a reference.I recommend this book for anyone new to the SOC analyst positions or if you just want to learn more about the various threats you may encounter and how to dive into them.

I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of relevant and free tools available to do a decent threat investigation before moving on to more advanced tools mentioned later on. Not only did the author Mostafa Yahia share the tools necessary, he also shared great strategies to perform my investigations. He guided me to know where to look for potential threats and revealed their known hiding places within the operating system. Lastly, he shared all of the log locations you could possibly look and monitor for potential attacks.I highly recommend reading this if you want to pursue a career in CyberSecurity as an SOC analyst or if you simply want the skills necessary to properly investigate your own systems. This is a great and informative read as it is deeply detailed and identifies many potential email, OS, and Network threats!