300-220 Leak Questions

The correct answer isB. Using "SecurityScan/2.5" to access all /admin endpoints. This log entry most clearly aligns with anauthorized security assessmentactivity designed to test weaknesses previously exploited during a breach.

Authorized security assessments—such as penetration tests or red team exercises—are typicallycontrolled, scoped, and intentional. They focus on validating security controls by probing sensitive areas (like administrative interfaces) while avoiding destructive actions. The user-agent string"SecurityScan/2.5"strongly suggests a purpose-built security scanning tool, which is commonly used by internal security teams or third-party assessors during sanctioned testing.

Option A is incorrect because performing login attempts at scale usingleaked credentialswould constitute real-world malicious behavior unless explicitly approved and tightly controlled. Even in authorized tests, credential stuffing with known leaked credentials is highly sensitive and would be explicitly documented; the wording here implies adversary behavior rather than assessment activity.

Option C is clearly malicious and inappropriate for an authorized assessment. Executing ashutdown commandis a destructive action and would violate standard rules of engagement for professional security testing. Such activity would be classified as adversarial exploitation, not a controlled delivery method.

Option D represents benign reconnaissance. A genericweb crawler gathering public-facing informationis typically associated with search engines or basic reconnaissance and does not directly test weaknesses related to a prior breach. While reconnaissance is part of assessments, it is not a strong indicator of a targeted, authorized delivery method.

From a threat hunting and SOC perspective, recognizing authorized assessment activity is critical to avoid misclassifying tests as incidents. Indicators include identifiable scanner user agents, predictable request patterns, limited scope targeting (such as /admin paths), and non-destructive behavior. This scenario reinforces an important operational lesson:context, intent, and tooling matter. Among the options,SecurityScan/2.5 targeting administrative endpointsbest reflects a legitimate, authorized security assessment delivery method.

The correct answer isAttack trees. Attack trees are uniquely suited for modelingmulti-step adversary behavior, which is essential when analyzing complex attack chains such as account takeover followed by data exfiltration.

Attack trees begin with ahigh-level attacker goal(for example, “Exfiltrate customer data”) and then break that goal into multiple branches representing different paths an attacker could take. These paths can include credential compromise, API abuse, privilege escalation, lateral movement, and persistence. This structure mirrors how real adversaries think and operate.

Option A (STRIDE) is useful for identifying broad threat categories—such as spoofing, tampering, or information disclosure—but it does not naturally capturesequential attack paths. Option B (CVSS) focuses on vulnerability severity scoring, not adversary behavior. Option D (DREAD) assesses risk impact but does not visualize how attacks unfold across systems.

For threat hunters and defenders, attack trees provide ashared mental modelbetween architects, SOC teams, and red teams. They directly inform detection engineering by highlightingcritical choke pointswhere attacker behavior must occur, such as token abuse, API enumeration, or anomalous role assumption in cloud environments.

In modern cloud security, where breaches often involvemultiple low-severity issues chained together, attack trees offer far greater strategic value than component-by-component analysis. They also align closely withMITRE ATT&CK mapping, enabling defenders to translate threat models into actionable hunts.

Thus, optionCis the most appropriate and professionally validated answer.