It can be difficult to prepare for a SOC analyst interview, especially if you are just starting your cybersecurity career, right? But do not worry; this blog will help you understand the most commonly asked SOC interview questions. No matter whether you are enrolled in SOC analyst training and placement, these questions will help you feel more confident and job-ready during your interview or college exam. So, let’s dive in!
SOC Analyst Interview Questions and Answers
Preparing for SOC analyst interviews can feel challenging, especially for beginners. This section covers the most commonly asked SOC analyst interview questions with simple explanations to help you build confidence and get job-ready for cybersecurity roles.
Q.1 What is a port scan? How can you identify scanning activity?
A port scan is a technique used by attackers to check which ports on a computer or server are open and available to connect. Attackers can identify vulnerabilities and plan an attack by using open ports.
How to identify port scanning activity:
- There will be unusual or sudden spikes in network traffic.
- You may notice multiple connection attempts from the same IP address to many different ports in a short time.
- Logs show failed connection attempts to various ports.
- Security tools like SIEM, firewalls, or IDS/IPS generate alerts showing repeated requests on many ports.
Q.2 Can you explain what an alert and an event are in cybersecurity?
Event: Any activity taking place within a computer system or network is referred to as an event. Connecting to Wi-Fi, opening a file, user login are example of events.
Alert: An alert is a warning message generated when the system detects something unusual or suspicious. For example, multiple failed login attempts or a sudden spike in traffic could trigger an alert.
Q.3 What is SIEM and why is it important in a SOC?
SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) is a security tool that gathers and analyses logs from different sources like firewalls, servers, and networks in order to identify cyberthreats.
SIEM is Important Because:
- It helps SOC analysts see everything in one place.
- It helps investigate incidents faster,
- It provides reports and dashboards for better decision making.
- It detects suspicious activity and generates alerts.
- It monitors security events in real time.
Q.4 What is threat intelligence and why is it useful?
Information about Cyber threats, attackers, their tactics, tools, and targets is known as threat intelligence.It helps security teams understand and prevent cyberattacks.
It is useful because:
- It supports stronger security decisions.
- It helps identify threats before they attack
- It improves faster and smarter incident response
- It helps predict future attacks based on patterns
Q.5 What is a false positive ?
When a system shows an alert but there is no real threat, it is known as false positive. For example, if the system shows an alert that, there is a virus in file, but the file is actually safe, this is called false positive.
Q.6 What do you mean by incident response?
The process of finding, investigating, and fixing a cybersecurity attack or security incident to reduce damage and restore normal operations quickly is referred to as incident response. It is a structured process that organizations follow to detect malware attacks, data breaches, and unauthorized access. The main goal of incident response is to prevent the attack from happening again.
Q.7 What are the different levels of SOC analysts (L1, L2, L3) and their responsibilities?
In a SOC(Security Operations Center), analysts work at three different levels:
- SOC L1 Analysts: They continuously monitor security alerts and logs, if they find something suspicious, they escalate it. SOC L1 analyst known as first line of defence.
- SOC L2 Analysts: They perform deeper investigation such as analysing logs and verify whether the alerts is a real threat or not. They block the IP addresses if required.
- SOC L3 Analysts: They are known as senior professionals who handle complex attacks, and incident recovery. They create security strategies, rules and playbooks.
Q.8 What is baseline behavior in monitoring?
Baseline behavior is the regular pattern of user actions such as network traffic, login times, data usage, and application behavior that happen every day without any threat. When the SOC team knows what is normal, then can easily notice when something unusual or suspicious happens. You can consider it as the benchmark of normal activity. It is important because it helps SOC analysts detect anomalies and false positives by comparing alerts with normal patterns.
For example: if an employee usually logs in between 8pm-9pm, and suddenly there is a login attempt at 4pm, this activity breaks the baseline. Also, if your server normally sends 5GB of data per day, but one day it sends 10 GB, it indicates abnormal behavior.
Q.9 What is IDS?
IDS stands for Intrusion Detection System that is used to monitor network threats and monitor network traffic in with in the computer network if it found something suspicious activity. IDS don’t block the attack they send the alert to the SOC team to prevent the unusual threats or cyberattacks.
Q.10 What is IPS?
IPS(Intrusion prevention System) is a security tool which is use to automatically block or stops attack in real time before it enters the network. this tool not only detects suspicious or malicious activity but also takes action against it to protect the system.
Q.11 What is Playbook?
A playbook in SOC (Security Operations Center) is a step-by-step documented guide that explains how to handle and respond to a specific security incident. It includes clear instructions, tools to use, people to contact, and actions to take when a particular type of threat occurs.
Playbooks help SOC analysts respond to security alerts quickly, consistently, and effectively.
Q.12 What is Runbook?
It is a step-by-step detailed guide for performing routine operational tasks that SOC analyst do regularly. It is mostly used for daily activities and standard procedures. It includes instructions on how to perform a task, commands to run, process checklists and tools.
Q.13 What is phishing and how do you detect it?
Phishing is a type of cyberattacks that attackers use to trick people into giving sensitive information like login credentials, money, and passwords. They usually do this through fake emails, messages, websites that look real.
How to Detect Phishing
You can identify a phishing attempt by checking for:
- Suspicious email addresses or links
- Spelling mistakes or urgent messages
- Unexpected requests for personal information or money
- Fake websites that look similar to real ones
Q.14 Explain the CIA Triad?
It is a key cybersecurity model that helps to protect information and systems. CIA stands for Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.
Confidentiality: Keeping information private and safe from unauthorized access. It means only the right people can see the data.
Integrity: Ensuring that information is accurate, unchanged, and trustworthy.Data should not be modified or deleted by unauthorized users.
Availability: It make sure information and systems should be available and working when needed. Authorized users should not be blocked from accessing services.
Q.15 What is a DDoS attack?
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial-of-Service attack, where attackers flood websites, servers, and network with huge fake traffic so that they become slow or stop working.
Example: Consider a website for online shopping that typically serves 20,000 users every minute. All of a sudden, thousands of compromised devices send millions of phony user requests at once. Real customers are unable to use the service because the server gets overloaded, performance drops and ultimately the website crashes.
Q. 16 What is NIDS?
NIDS stands for Network Intrusion Detection System. It is used to monitor network traffic. It keeps an eye on incoming and outgoing data. It alerts the administrator if it detects any suspicious behaviour such as malware activity, port scanning and unauthorized access attempt. NIDS is passive in nature, meaning it can detect and report alerts rather than blocking.
Q.17 What is the difference between penetration testing and software testing?
Penetration testing helps to identify and acknowledge security vulnerabilities. It checks how secure a system is from hackers, while software testing checks whether the software works correctly without bugs. It mostly checks the functionality of the software rather than security.
Q.18 What is cognitive cyber security?
Cognitive cybersecurity is an advanced type of cybersecurity that uses Artificial intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) tools and techniques to think, learn, and detect cyber threats the way a human security expert works.
Q.19 What do you mean by security misconfiguration?
When an application or network device is misconfigured making it vulnerable to cyberattack or fraud it is called security misconfiguration. It is a kind of vulnerability that attackers use according to their requirements. Security misconfiguration provides a gap that attackers or any third-party users can utilize to take advantage of it.
Q.20 What is a brute force attack?
A brute force attack is a method used by attackers to guess usernames and passwords by trying many possible combinations until the correct one is found. This attack is usually done using automated tools that can try thousands of passwords in seconds.
