o3-mini-high vs o4-mini-low KQL Benchmark

On a Linux host, a ping command was executed to test internet connectivity. Determine which IP address was used as the ping target.

A Linux host’s Syslog shows a shell-based network discovery script ran multiple commands. One of them listed current TCP connections. Which utility was invoked?

In a Linux environment, you observe a process labeled like the cron daemon but running from an unexpected path. Investigate creation events to uncover the actual filename used by this fake cron process.

A malicious actor may attempt to list running processes on a Windows machine using a WMI-based command. Review the process creation events to find out which utility was invoked to perform this enumeration.

On a Windows host, investigate process events to find when Task Manager was launched via cmd with an unusual flag. What was the full command executed?

During a Linux investigation, you notice processes spawning curl and wget commands that pull a script from a remote GitHub raw URL and pipe it into bash. Identify the name of the script that was retrieved and executed.

On a Linux host, identify the process invocation that altered a user’s login shell. What was the full command used?

On a Linux endpoint, process events reveal a chain of group‐enumeration utilities executed by a single session. Which utility was used to query the system’s group database?

A Linux host executed a native utility to overwrite and then remove a temporary file in one step. Identify the name of the file that was securely deleted by this action.

On a Linux system, attackers may use timestamp manipulation to hide malicious changes. Investigate relevant logs to identify which file’s modification timestamp was altered by such a command.

A suspicious actor appears to have removed the USN change journal on a Windows workstation. Investigate process start records to find out exactly which command was used to delete the journal. What was the full command line invoked?

A Windows system shows a cmd.exe process spawn that appears to have been used for environment discovery. Review the process creation records to identify the exact command the adversary ran to enumerate environment variables.

On a Linux endpoint, a command was executed to start a proxy service commonly used for onion routing. Identify the name of the service that was launched to enable this proxy functionality.

A Windows host logs a change to the Terminal Server registry key disabling single-session per user. Which command-line utility executed this registry modification?

On Windows systems, disabling RDP via the registry generates registry write events. Investigate registry event logs for modifications under the Terminal Server configuration path. What is the name of the registry value that was changed to disable Remote Desktop Protocol?

On a Linux host, an activity was recorded where the local clock and timezone were queried. Review the available process execution logs to uncover what full command was run to fetch the system time and timezone.

A suspicious BITS transfer was orchestrated via bitsadmin.exe on Windows, creating a job to download and then execute a payload. Investigate the process event logs to determine what custom job name was specified when the BITS job was created.

On a Linux system, logs show that the password expiration settings file was accessed. Identify which command was executed to list its contents.

On a Windows system, a non-standard image downloader was used to fetch a remote file by passing a URL to a lockscreen utility. Identify the executable responsible for launching that activity.

Windows systems may be probed for their password policy settings using a native command-line tool. Determine which command was executed to list the local password policy on the target hosts.

On a Linux host, identify any processes that used ping with a large count value to introduce a delay before launching another process. What was the command executed immediately after the ping delay?

On a Windows endpoint, an attacker ran a PowerShell sequence to establish a WMI event subscription using CommandLineEventConsumer. Inspect the process or script execution logs to uncover which executable was set to run by this subscription.

Investigate registry modifications on Windows that reveal when cmd.exe persistence was configured via the CommandProcessor AutoRun key. What command was configured under the AutoRun value?

A suspicious registry change was made on a Windows system modifying the Terminal Services DLL path. Investigate registry events to find out which DLL file name was set as the ServiceDll value under TermService. What was the file name?

A Linux user’s bash history was searched for patterns like ‘pass’ and ‘ssh’, and the matching lines were redirected into a new file. Determine the name of that file.