CYBRARY The password is already gone
Prompt flooding only starts once authentication succeeded, so credential reset is the floor, not the response.
C-362·Cross-platform·35 min
Approve, approve, approve Start this lab
An account was flooded with approval prompts through the night until somebody tapped yes. Count the prompts, judge the source against the help desk's own re-enrollment traffic, and cut the session before deciding what the intruder reached.
Mission brief · C-362
Tier 3 analyst on the incident response bench
Tier 3 — deep host and forensics
Business important
Track default
You are acting as
the break-glass IR account `svc-ir`, checked out of the vault for this incident — never the compromised identity
How you got here
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.
Your access
EDR console (detections + live response)
Endpoint detection & response
- Read the detection and process tree
- Look up host criticality, owner and VIP flags
- Open a live-response session on the host
- Contain the host over the agent channel
- Not yours: Disable user accounts (that's the identity team)
- Not yours: Delete evidence
Live-response shell on the affected host
Host shell session
- Read the filesystem, logs and running state
- Collect a triage package
- Not yours: Reboot or reimage without owner approval
What's at stake
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.
Rules of engagement
You may act alone
- Investigate from the live-response session
- Collect evidence and triage packages
- Contain a standard-criticality host
Ask a human first
- Containing a mission-critical host — asset owner and on-call manager first
- Disabling a user identity — identity team, and HR/legal if it looks like an insider
Why this matters
A valid password plus human fatigue defeats a second factor without any technical exploit at all.
Concepts
Count the pressure
Denied prompts before the approval are the evidence that consent was worn down rather than given.
Kill the session
The approval issued a session that survives a password change until it is revoked.
Objectives graded
- Count the prompts and find the one that was approved
- Tell the prompting source apart from help desk enrollment
- Revoke the issued session and re-enroll the second factor
Incident timeline
Relative to the moment the alert fired. One of these beats is ordinary activity.
- −3hA valid password is used from an unfamiliar addressIdentityT1078
- −2h 55mApproval prompts start arriving every two minutesIdentityT1621
- −40mThe help desk re-enrolls a different user's phoneIdentityordinary activity
- alertA prompt is approved and a session is issuedIdentityT1621
- +9mThe new session reads mail rules and directory membershipSaaST1114.002
Live walkthrough
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.
- 1.Approve consequential actionpromptapproval gateApprove consequential action
- 2.Write case field credentialRefactioncredentialRef → vault/soc-automation
- 3.Attach evidence: case/soar-c-362/evidenceactionThe learner attached at least one linkable piece of evidence to the case.
- 4.Write case field closureNoteactionclosureNote → written
- 5.Write case field promptCountactionpromptCount → 41
- 6.verdict on ind-mfa-sourceactionind-mfa-source.verdict → malicious
- 7.sessionsRevoked on usr-r.kauractionapproval gateusr-r.kaur.sessionsRevoked → true
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.
- pass behavior · The workflow reached a terminal success state on the graded run.
- pass safety · A consequential action passed through a human approval gate.
- pass efficiency · No non-idempotent operation was retried without an idempotency key.
- pass configuration · Every action node resolves its secret from the vault, never an inline field.
- pass investigation · The learner attached at least one linkable piece of evidence to the case.
- pass explanation · The case carries an analyst closure note explaining the outcome.
- pass behavior · No innocent asset in the alert batch was contained, disabled or revoked.
- pass configuration · The playbook survived the integration faults it met and still finished.
- pass investigation · Nothing was changed in the estate before evidence had been gathered.
- pass investigation · The learner counted the prompts and fixed the moment one was approved.
- pass investigation · The prompting source was judged against the help desk's own enrollment work.
- pass behavior · The issued session was revoked and the second factor re-enrolled.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
Approval prompts sent all night against a valid password until fatigue answered for the user.
| Technique | Name | Tactic |
|---|---|---|
| T1621 | Multi-Factor Authentication Request Generation | Credential Access |
| T1078 | Valid Accounts | Defense Evasion |
| T1114.002 | Email Collection: Remote Email Collection | Collection |
What each rubric rule proves
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 counted the prompts and fixed the moment one was approved.
investigation · weight 20 · T1621 Multi-Factor Authentication Request Generation (Credential Access)
The prompting source was judged against the help desk's own enrollment work.
investigation · weight 15 · T1078 Valid Accounts (Defense Evasion)
The issued session was revoked and the second factor re-enrolled.
behavior · weight 20 · T1114.002 Email Collection: Remote Email Collection (Collection)
Common mistakes
- Resetting the password and leaving the approved session live.
- Treating help-desk enrollment prompts as part of the attack.
Same idea, three vendors
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 |
Where does this value come from?
The same reference to an enrichment node's verdict, written three ways:
- Cortex Forge: ${enrich-sender.verdict}
- Summit SOAR: enrich-sender.verdict
- Storyline: <<enrich-sender.verdict>>
The same concepts in shipping products
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 |
What transfers
Number matching, prompt rate limits and sign-in risk policies are the durable fixes behind this case.