SOC Analyst Interview

Comprehensive interview preparation for Security Operations Center roles, covering incident triage, threat monitoring, and security analysis techniques.

Incident Triage

SIEM & Log Analysis

Threat Hunting

Security Monitoring

Technical Questions

Core technical questions specific to SOC operations and security monitoring.

Incident Triage

Q: How do you prioritize security alerts?

Risk scoring, business impact, threat intelligence

Q: Walk me through your incident response process

Detection, analysis, containment, eradication, recovery

Q: How do you handle false positives?

Tuning rules, whitelisting, context analysis

Q: What's your approach to alert fatigue?

Automation, correlation, escalation procedures

SIEM & Log Analysis

Q: How do you write effective SIEM rules?

Correlation logic, thresholds, false positive reduction

Q: Explain log normalization and parsing

Standard formats, field extraction, data enrichment

Q: How do you investigate suspicious log entries?

Timeline analysis, source correlation, context gathering

Q: What's your experience with Splunk/QRadar?

Search syntax, dashboards, reporting, automation

Threat Hunting

Q: How do you conduct proactive threat hunting?

Hypothesis-driven, intelligence-led, anomaly-based

Q: What indicators do you look for?

IOCs, TTPs, behavioral patterns, network anomalies

Q: How do you use threat intelligence?

Feeds integration, enrichment, actionable intelligence

Q: Explain your hunting methodology

Data sources, analysis techniques, documentation

Security Monitoring

Q: How do you monitor network traffic?

NetFlow, packet analysis, IDS/IPS, DLP

Q: What's your approach to endpoint monitoring?

EDR, behavioral analysis, process monitoring

Q: How do you handle encrypted traffic?

SSL inspection, certificate analysis, metadata

Q: What's your experience with EDR tools?

CrowdStrike, Carbon Black, SentinelOne, automation

Practical Scenarios

Real-world scenarios to test your practical SOC analysis skills.

Alert Analysis

Scenario: Multiple failed login attempts

Brute force detection, account lockout, investigation

Scenario: Unusual outbound connections

C2 detection, data exfiltration, containment

Scenario: Suspicious file execution

Malware analysis, sandboxing, eradication

Scenario: Privilege escalation alerts

Account compromise, lateral movement, response

Incident Response

Scenario: Ransomware outbreak

Containment, communication, recovery procedures

Scenario: Data breach notification

Scope assessment, legal requirements, remediation

Scenario: APT investigation

Advanced analysis, attribution, long-term monitoring

Scenario: Insider threat detection

Behavioral analysis, data access monitoring, response

Tools & Technologies

Essential tools and technologies every SOC analyst should know.

SIEM Platforms

• Splunk
• QRadar
• Exabeam
• LogRhythm
• ELK Stack

EDR & Monitoring

• CrowdStrike
• Carbon Black
• SentinelOne
• Cylance
• Microsoft Defender

Analysis Tools

• Wireshark
• Volatility
• YARA
• VirusTotal
• Maltego

SOC Best Practices: Always maintain detailed documentation, follow escalation procedures, and ensure proper communication with stakeholders. Remember that speed and accuracy are crucial in incident response, but thorough analysis is equally important.