Definitions - Benign
Definitions - Malicious
Definitions - Benign (Severe)
Grayware
Hodgepodge
100

The category we would use for a website displaying a homeowner's association.

A) Travel

B) Government

C) Real-estate

C) Real-estate

Keep in mind some HOA sites look like government websites, but if they say "homeowners association" or "HOA", this is not government-owned and should be classified as real-estate.

100

Which of the following categories does NOT require malware team's approval before classifying?

A) malware

B) command-and-control

C) hacking

C) hacking

100

If you receive a URL that displays a parked page with click-through ads related to gambling, what category would be most appropriate?

Parked!

Remember we always choose parked UNLESS there is adult CONTENT - not words - displayed (adult), or if the domain name is typosquatting a legitimate page (grayware).

100

Name as many of the 10 grayware tags as you can
(10 points each).

TRIPLE if you can name them all!

  • 1. Illegal-activity

2. Rogueware-adware

3. Typosquatting

4. Scam

5. Random-redirections

6. Hacked-site

7. Youtube-download

8. Infected-drive-by-download

9. Chrome-red-page-except-deceptive-site

10. http-and-https-different-content

100

TRUE/FALSE: If our remote machine isn't working, we can open CRs on our local machine.

FALSE!!!

We never ever open CRs on our local machine, even if they're suggested benign.  You never know if a URL is infected or not, and we have to abide by Palo Alto Network policies to keep our machines safe.  The purpose of the remote machine is to research securely.

200

The category we would use for a website offering mortgage loans.

A) Stock-advice-and-tools

B) Financial-services

C) Real-estate

B) Financial-services

200

You receive a URL that the customer suggests as "malware".  You take it to your remote machine and plug it into VirusTotal to be scanned.

Name 1 of 2 ways that we determine we need to submit this to the malware team?

DOUBLE if you can name both!

1. 3 or more VirusTotal hits from ANY vendor

2. AT LEAST 1 VirusTotal hit from a TRUSTED Vendor

200

You receive a URL suggested shopping.  When you launch the page, you see an online store selling armor and bullet-proof vests.  You don't see any firearms nor ammo for sale.

What is the correct category/categories?

A) Shopping

B) Hunting-and-fishing + shopping

C) Weapons

D) Weapons + shopping

D) Weapons + shopping

According to our definitions, we include bulletproof vests in the weapons category; weapons is also a shopping category!

200
  • What is the Red Page we do NOT use to classify as grayware?

A) The site ahead contains harmful programs

B) Deceptive site ahead

C) The site ahead contains malware

DOUBLE the points if you can name the category it's actually associated with!

B) Deceptive Site Ahead!

DOUBLE: Phishing!

200

What is the difference between EMC and MCT? (Name any difference)

- EMC is on our local machine, MCT is on our remote machine

- EMC is our editor portal to receive and submit CRs, MCT is our research portal

300

The category we would use if we launch a URL and we see the following, and no other evidence can be found in our research.

A) Content-delivery-network

B) Dynamic-DNS

C) Web-hosting


A) CDN!

Remember, if we can find other evidence (i.e. sibling/parent/child domains with content, registrant info, etc.) then we classify based on that evidence; otherwise, we go with CDN.

300

TRUE/FALSE: All malicious categories are severe, but not all severe categories are malicious.

TRUE!

The 5 malicious categories are a sub-section of the total 11 severe categories.

300

You receive a URL suggested gambling that is a casino's website, but does not offer any online gambling.

What is the correct category?

A) Travel

B) Real-estate

C) Gambling

D) Entertainment-and-arts

B) Real-estate!

300

You receive the URL homdepot.com from the customer jerryseinfeld@homedepot.com, with the customer's suggested category "malware". You launch the page and it displays the home page for Home Depot, however you see on WhoIS that the registrant is "Privacy Domains" and was registered yesterday.

What is the correct category and tag (if applicable)?

A) Grayware -> illegal activity

B) Grayware -> scam

C) Grayware -> typosquatting

D) Home-and-garden

C) Grayware -> typosquatting!

In this case, the customer is from Home Depot (as we can see from the contact email) claiming this domain is malicious.  We confirm that, even though it's showing Home Depot, it is not owned by Home Depot.  Many times you will see "Privacy" listed as the registrant - this means that the registrant is unknown.

300

TRUE/FALSE: sports.yahoo.com is a parent of yahoo.com

FALSE!

yahoo.com is the parent of sports.yahoo.com

400

The category we would use for a website that allows the user to bypass URL filtering and anonymously browse the internet.

A) internet-communications-and-telephony

B) proxy-avoidance-and-anonymizers

C) dynamic-DNS

B) proxy-avoidance-and-anonymizers

400

TRUE OR FALSE: We can make IP addresses
(without a path) a malicious category.

FALSE! 

An IP without a path (i.e. 192.168.255.255/path/example.html) cannot be a malicious category.  If we block an IP address as malicious, we're potentially blocking all domains hosted on this IP as well!

400

You receive a URL with the customer comment "This website belongs to my favorite bar, please unblock." The cloud category is alcohol-and-tobacco, and the customer suggests shopping. When you launch the page, you indeed see a website for a bar with a menu and takeout options.

TRUE/FALSE: You should keep the cloud category as alcohol-and-tobacco even though they serve food, because they also serve alcohol.

FALSE!

We do NOT include restaurants in the severe category of alcohol-and-tobacco. Because they also serve food, we would go with society.

400

You receive the URL omnuator.com suggested computer-and-internet-info, and is in the cloud as grayware.  You launch the URL and see a soft404 page.  You do not find any registrant info, nor any content on child domains, nor content on any archived pages.  However, you see on the Google search several articles entitled "How to Remove this Virus omnuator.com".

Do you honor the customer's request to make it benign, or do you keep this as grayware?

A) Keep as grayware with the tag rogueware-adware

B) Keep as grayware with the tag typosquatting

C) There's no evidence! Insufficient-content with the attribute soft404

D) The customer is always right! Change it to computer-and-internet-info

A) Keep as grayware with the tag rogueware-adware!

The customer is suggesting this is benign, but you have exhausted all of your research outlets and found no evidence of what this domain does, other than reputable reports that this domain is malicious.  These Google reports are good evidence for rogueware-adware.

400

You receive the URL subdomain2.subdomain1.maindomain.com/subdirectory1/subdirectory2.php

This URL is not in our database, but a few children of maindomain.com are.

Assuming the following are all in our database, which is the closest best-match parent that you would find in the Preserved URL for this CR?

A) subdomain1.maindomain.com

B) maindomain.com

C) subdomain2.subdomain1.maindomain.com

D) subdomain2.subdomain1.maindomain.com/subdirectory1

D) subdomain2.subdomain1.maindomain.com/subdirectory1

This is the closest parent to the Original URL in our database (in this scenario).

500

Name 5 of the 9 categories that can have "shopping" added as a secondary category.

DOUBLE if you can name all 9!

1. Adult

2. Health-and-medicine

3. Home-and-garden

4. Hunting-and-fishing

5. Motor-vehicles

6. Music

7. Religion

8. Swimsuits-and-intimate-apparel

9. Weapons

500

Name 3 of the 5 malicious categories.

DOUBLE if you can name all 5!

1. Phishing

2. Malware

3. Grayware

4. Command-and-Control

5. Hacking

500

Name 6 of the 11 severe categories (HINT: Severe categories include the 5 MALICIOUS categories!)

TRIPLE if you can name all 11!

1. Phishing

2. Malware

3. Grayware

4. Command-and-control

5. Hacking

6. Adult

7. Abused-drugs

8. Alcohol-and-tobacco

9. Extremism

10. Gambling

11. Weapons

500

In the this imaginary scenario, you receive the following CR in EMC:

Original URL: offic3.com

Customer Suggests The Category: malware

Cloud (Current) Category: unknown

There is no content shown on the domain, nor on any of its child domains. You check WhoIs.com and under registrant info, you see the owner is Microsoft.

Name the correct category you should choose.

A) Computer-and-internet-info, based on the registrant

B) No-access

C) Insufficient-content

D) Grayware -> typosquatting

A) Computer-and-internet-info, same as office.com

This is a case of defense squatting! Since Microsoft owns this domain, we know it's not being used maliciously.

500

You receive the URL subdomain2.subdomain1.maindomain.com/subdirectory1/subdirectory2.php

This URL is not in our database, but a few children of maindomain.com are.

Assuming the following are all in our database, which is the closest best-match parent that you would find in the Preserved URL for this CR?

A) subdomain1.maindomain.com

B) maindomain.com

C) subdomain2.subdomain1.maindomain.com

D) subdomain1.subdomain2.maindomain.com/subdirectory1

M
e
n
u