CYBRARY Three parts, one mechanism
A filter says when, a consumer says what, and a binding joins them; removing one leaves the rest ready to re-arm.
C-360·Cross-platform·45 min
Persistence with no file to find Start this lab
A server keeps re-running a command after every reboot, and there is no scheduled task, no service and no startup entry. The instruction is stored in the management database itself. Find the subscription, judge it against the monitoring agent's own, and remove all three of its parts.
Mission brief · C-360
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
Persistence that lives in a management database has no file to quarantine, which defeats a file-centric response entirely.
Concepts
Legitimate subscriptions exist
Monitoring and management products register their own, so creation time and the command run are the discriminators.
Verify after reboot
The only proof persistence is gone is a restart that stays quiet.
Objectives graded
- Find the subscription that survives every reboot
- Separate it from the monitoring agent's own subscription
- Remove filter, consumer and binding together and confirm it stays gone
Incident timeline
Relative to the moment the alert fired. One of these beats is ordinary activity.
- −2hAn event filter, a consumer and a binding are created within one secondEDRT1546.003
- −1h 35mThe monitoring agent registers its own subscription during an upgradeEDRordinary activity
- −40mThe server reboots and the consumer runs a command as SYSTEMSIEMT1059.001
- alertA weekly review flags a subscription created outside a change windowSIEMT1546.003
- +25mDeleting only the consumer leaves the filter and binding in placeEDRT1546.003
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-360/evidenceactionThe learner attached at least one linkable piece of evidence to the case.
- 4.Write case field closureNoteactionclosureNote → written
- 5.Write case field subscriptionNameactionsubscriptionName → SCM Event Log Filter
- 6.verdict on ind-wmi-consumeractionind-wmi-consumer.verdict → malicious
- 7.subscriptionRemoved on hst-nw-srv14actionhst-nw-srv14.subscriptionRemoved → true
Gate approved — 100%
12 of 12 rubric rules hold.
Gate denied — 91%
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 named the subscription, the thing that actually survives a reboot.
- pass investigation · The rogue subscription was told apart from the monitoring agent's legitimate one.
- pass behavior · Filter, consumer and binding were all removed, so nothing re-arms at the next boot.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
Persistence stored in the management database itself: no file, no task, and it survives every reboot.
| Technique | Name | Tactic |
|---|---|---|
| T1546.003 | Event Triggered Execution: Windows Management Instrumentation Event Subscription | Persistence |
| T1059.001 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell | Execution |
| T1078.002 | Valid Accounts: Domain Accounts | Defense Evasion |
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 named the subscription, the thing that actually survives a reboot.
investigation · weight 20 · T1546.003 Event Triggered Execution: Windows Management Instrumentation Event Subscription (Persistence)
The rogue subscription was told apart from the monitoring agent's legitimate one.
investigation · weight 15 · T1078.002 Valid Accounts: Domain Accounts (Defense Evasion)
Filter, consumer and binding were all removed, so nothing re-arms at the next boot.
behavior · weight 20 · T1059.001 Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell (Execution)
Common mistakes
- Deleting the consumer alone and declaring the host clean.
- Removing the monitoring agent's subscriptions along with the rogue one.
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
Scheduled tasks, startup entries, service triggers and login hooks all need the same whole-mechanism removal.