参考回答
On its surface, this seems like a strange question. After all, why would incident responders working on the defensive -- i.e., blue team -- side of the house need to break into the IT environment? In security, however, attack and defense are two sides of the same coin. The better incident responders can anticipate the tradecraft -- i.e., tools, techniques and procedures -- of attackers, the better they can equip themselves to understand top security threats, likely attacks and, by extension, possible indicators of compromise. In short, to understand the blue team side, one has to understand the red team side. Because of this, interviewers often ask how you would conduct an attack yourself. It's a clever question because it asks you to simultaneously demonstrate the following:
- Your knowledge of adversary tradecraft and the mechanics of an attack kill chain -- i.e., the chain of events necessary for an attacker to take action on their objectives.
- Your knowledge of defensive techniques, which you must try to avoid in your hypothetical attack.
Contrary to what many assume, most interviewers asking this question in incident response interviews don't necessarily expect right answers. Rather, they're looking for a candidate's ability to do the following:
- Think creatively.
- Recognize potential weaknesses in the IT environment.
- Understand how technologies and components fit together.
Bearing the above in mind, a useful strategy for answering this question is to describe your thought process. Go into detail about different approaches you might take, their pros and cons, how and why you might be detected or thwarted, etc. It's OK to mention a suboptimal strategy -- for example, one that might be difficult to pull off in reality -- as long as you do the following:
- Describe it clearly.
- Recognize and acknowledge its challenges.
- Note the resources required to carry out the attack.
- Indicate how incident responders might thwart your efforts.