Question

Difficulty: MediumIncident Response Process and Playbooks

During cloud infrastructure monitoring, a SOC analyst detects suspicious automated API calls using a developer service account key to copy sensitive object storage buckets to an unapproved external destination. The security team must immediately initiate containment procedures according to the incident response playbook. Which of the following containment actions should the incident response team execute immediately? (Select TWO.)

  1. Revoke the compromised service account's active access keys and temporary session tokens.Answer
  2. Attach an explicit inline deny policy to the service account restricting object storage read and export operations.Answer
  3. C
    Re-image all build nodes and host virtual machines associated with the cloud developer environment.
  4. D
    Update web application firewall rules to block SQL injection payloads directed at edge application servers.

Answer

The incident response team should revoke the compromised service account's active access keys and session tokens, and attach an explicit inline deny policy restricting object storage operations.
In cloud incident response playbooks, containing compromised identity credentials requires stopping authentication and authorization channels immediately. Revoking access keys invalidates credential access, while applying an explicit IAM deny policy provides immediate permission enforcement across the cloud environment to stop ongoing data exfiltration.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the compromised identity vector
Determined that an exposed cloud service account key is being used for unauthorized API calls.
Containment must target the specific vector facilitating unauthorized access.
2
Execute immediate credential invalidation
Revoked access keys and active tokens for the compromised service account identity.
Prevents the threat actor from issuing further API commands.
3
Enforce explicit policy-level containment
Attached an inline IAM deny policy prohibiting S3/object storage data reads and exports.
Guarantees immediate blocking of API permissions even if cached tokens persist.

Key Concept

Cloud Identity Incident Containment
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