SANS GCIH (SEC504) EXAM 100 QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS NEWEST 2026 100% PASS
Who should make the decision of when to put a system back into production?
A) Systems administrators
B) Business team
C) Security team
D) Data owner - ANSWER---B) Business team
Which command will display ASCII and Unicode strings within a malware sample?
A) cat
B) Get-Strings
C) strings
D) findstr - ANSWER---C) strings
Which type of system is most commonly used to investigate malware?
A) Virtual machine
B) Day-to-day host
C) Thick client
D) Production system - ANSWER---A) Virtual machine
If you believe your system has been the victim of a rootkit attack, what is the most cost-
effective form of eradication?
A) Restore the OS from the most recent backup.
B) Reformat, reinstall, and patch the system from the original media.
C) Patch and reboot the compromised system.
, SANS GCIH (SEC504) EXAM 100 QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS NEWEST 2026 100% PASS
D) Install applications from a different vendor. - ANSWER---B) Reformat, reinstall, and
patch the system from the original media.
What tool is used to record the state of the registry before and after malware is
executed on an analysis system?
A) Regshot
B) Ollydbg
C) Wireshark
D) Regripper - ANSWER---A) Regshot
What method could be used to ensure that an asset under investigation is not put back
into production without approval before the investigation is complete?
A) Move the asset to a different cloud data center.
B) Terminate the asset.
C) Shut off all administrative access to the cloud environment so no admins can make
changes.
D) Add an "under investigation" tag to the asset. - ANSWER---D) Add an "under
investigation" tag to the asset.
During the remediation phase of incident response, you remove a file from your infected
web server. What is the most important additional thing to do to prevent being
compromised again?
A) Determine the root cause of the attack.
B) Review your host-based firewall rules.
C) Restore the host data from backups.
D) Apply patches and harden the system. - ANSWER---A) Determine the root cause of
the attack.
, SANS GCIH (SEC504) EXAM 100 QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS NEWEST 2026 100% PASS
Why is performing memory analysis on RAM images a staple of investigations?
A) Valuable information may exist in RAM, which might not be found on disk.
B) Speed - Evidence from a RAM image will match disk content.
C) RAM provides more consistent images than disk.
D) It's easier to look for historical information in RAM than on disk. - ANSWER---A)
Valuable information may exist in RAM, which might not be found on disk.
An investigator identifies the following POST request. Which log recorded the activity?
1583050850.951 185 192.168.40.123 TCP_MISS/200 1856 POST
https://update.googleapis.com/service/update2? -ORIGINAL_DST/172.219.10.153
text/xml
A) Switch access log
B) Regshot event log
C) Proxy access log
D) Windows event log - ANSWER---C) Proxy access log
What are two basic approaches commonly employed when investigating malware?
A) Running a penetration test and running a vulnerability scan.
B) Monitoring the environment and examining code.
C) Taking the environment offline and restoring from backups.
D) Performing a risk assessment and confirming a possible exploit type. - ANSWER---
B) Monitoring the environment and examining code.
, SANS GCIH (SEC504) EXAM 100 QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS NEWEST 2026 100% PASS
What step should always be taken first during an incident?
A) Identifying which systems are unpatched.
B) Verifying whether an incident occurred.
C) Determining which threat intelligence feeds to query.
D) Choosing which systems to rebuild. - ANSWER---B) Verifying whether an incident
occurred.
In what way is logging API access to a cloud environment a major incident response
benefit?
A) It helps to provide detailed insight into network activity for analysis.
B) It helps to understand the scope of the breach and the actions taken by an
attacker.
C) It provides verification of breached data access.
D) It provides full packet capture visibility. - ANSWER---B) It helps to understand the
scope of the breach and the actions taken by an attacker.
API access logs include all programmatic access to cloud services, identity and key
use, and a record of attacker tactics used to exploit the cloud. These are the most
useful data for understanding the scope of a breach and the actions taken by the
attacker.
In a packet capture, an analyst observes that a system sent a frequent, small, outbound
communication to a known bad IP, over a seven-day period. What type of behavior is
possibly occurring?
A) Ack scan
B) Fragmentation
C) Beaconing
ANSWERS NEWEST 2026 100% PASS
Who should make the decision of when to put a system back into production?
A) Systems administrators
B) Business team
C) Security team
D) Data owner - ANSWER---B) Business team
Which command will display ASCII and Unicode strings within a malware sample?
A) cat
B) Get-Strings
C) strings
D) findstr - ANSWER---C) strings
Which type of system is most commonly used to investigate malware?
A) Virtual machine
B) Day-to-day host
C) Thick client
D) Production system - ANSWER---A) Virtual machine
If you believe your system has been the victim of a rootkit attack, what is the most cost-
effective form of eradication?
A) Restore the OS from the most recent backup.
B) Reformat, reinstall, and patch the system from the original media.
C) Patch and reboot the compromised system.
, SANS GCIH (SEC504) EXAM 100 QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS NEWEST 2026 100% PASS
D) Install applications from a different vendor. - ANSWER---B) Reformat, reinstall, and
patch the system from the original media.
What tool is used to record the state of the registry before and after malware is
executed on an analysis system?
A) Regshot
B) Ollydbg
C) Wireshark
D) Regripper - ANSWER---A) Regshot
What method could be used to ensure that an asset under investigation is not put back
into production without approval before the investigation is complete?
A) Move the asset to a different cloud data center.
B) Terminate the asset.
C) Shut off all administrative access to the cloud environment so no admins can make
changes.
D) Add an "under investigation" tag to the asset. - ANSWER---D) Add an "under
investigation" tag to the asset.
During the remediation phase of incident response, you remove a file from your infected
web server. What is the most important additional thing to do to prevent being
compromised again?
A) Determine the root cause of the attack.
B) Review your host-based firewall rules.
C) Restore the host data from backups.
D) Apply patches and harden the system. - ANSWER---A) Determine the root cause of
the attack.
, SANS GCIH (SEC504) EXAM 100 QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS NEWEST 2026 100% PASS
Why is performing memory analysis on RAM images a staple of investigations?
A) Valuable information may exist in RAM, which might not be found on disk.
B) Speed - Evidence from a RAM image will match disk content.
C) RAM provides more consistent images than disk.
D) It's easier to look for historical information in RAM than on disk. - ANSWER---A)
Valuable information may exist in RAM, which might not be found on disk.
An investigator identifies the following POST request. Which log recorded the activity?
1583050850.951 185 192.168.40.123 TCP_MISS/200 1856 POST
https://update.googleapis.com/service/update2? -ORIGINAL_DST/172.219.10.153
text/xml
A) Switch access log
B) Regshot event log
C) Proxy access log
D) Windows event log - ANSWER---C) Proxy access log
What are two basic approaches commonly employed when investigating malware?
A) Running a penetration test and running a vulnerability scan.
B) Monitoring the environment and examining code.
C) Taking the environment offline and restoring from backups.
D) Performing a risk assessment and confirming a possible exploit type. - ANSWER---
B) Monitoring the environment and examining code.
, SANS GCIH (SEC504) EXAM 100 QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS NEWEST 2026 100% PASS
What step should always be taken first during an incident?
A) Identifying which systems are unpatched.
B) Verifying whether an incident occurred.
C) Determining which threat intelligence feeds to query.
D) Choosing which systems to rebuild. - ANSWER---B) Verifying whether an incident
occurred.
In what way is logging API access to a cloud environment a major incident response
benefit?
A) It helps to provide detailed insight into network activity for analysis.
B) It helps to understand the scope of the breach and the actions taken by an
attacker.
C) It provides verification of breached data access.
D) It provides full packet capture visibility. - ANSWER---B) It helps to understand the
scope of the breach and the actions taken by an attacker.
API access logs include all programmatic access to cloud services, identity and key
use, and a record of attacker tactics used to exploit the cloud. These are the most
useful data for understanding the scope of a breach and the actions taken by the
attacker.
In a packet capture, an analyst observes that a system sent a frequent, small, outbound
communication to a known bad IP, over a seven-day period. What type of behavior is
possibly occurring?
A) Ack scan
B) Fragmentation
C) Beaconing
