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GCIH · Question #814

Which of the following is a suspicious entry in the Volatility output attached?

The correct answer is D. Closed connection to a web server with no owner process. In memory forensics, a network connection with no associated owner process is a strong indicator of malicious activity or process injection.

Malware Analysis & Advanced Persistent Threats

Question

Which of the following is a suspicious entry in the Volatility output attached?

Exhibit

GCIH question #814 exhibit

Options

  • AInvalid IP address of the second Svchost connection
  • BIncorrect owner for the UDP listening port for PID 900
  • CUnusual port used for the TCP connection for PID 3872
  • DClosed connection to a web server with no owner process

How the community answered

(31 responses)
  • A
    13% (4)
  • B
    6% (2)
  • C
    19% (6)
  • D
    61% (19)

Why each option

In memory forensics, a network connection with no associated owner process is a strong indicator of malicious activity or process injection.

AInvalid IP address of the second Svchost connection

Svchost.exe legitimately maintains multiple outbound connections to Microsoft-owned IP addresses, so a second connection is not inherently invalid without specific evidence the IP is malformed or non-routable.

BIncorrect owner for the UDP listening port for PID 900

PID 900 on a given system may legitimately own a UDP listening port depending on which Windows service is assigned to that PID, making this non-conclusive without further service-to-PID mapping.

CUnusual port used for the TCP connection for PID 3872

An unusual port for PID 3872 is context-dependent and requires knowing what application owns that PID and its expected communication behavior before it can be considered suspicious.

DClosed connection to a web server with no owner processCorrect

A closed TCP connection to a web server with no owner process is suspicious because every legitimate network connection should map to a running process in memory; the absence of an owning process suggests the malicious process terminated after establishing the connection, performed process injection to hide itself, or used kernel-level techniques to obscure its network activity.

Concept tested: Memory forensics network connection anomaly detection

Topics

#Volatility#memory forensics#orphan processes#network connection analysis

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