Soc Analyst Interview Preparation: 100+ Real-Time Scenarios

Crack SOC Interviews with Confidence Using Realistic Scenarios and Expert Guidance (100+ realtime Questions)

What you'll learn

Answer 100+ real SOC interview questions with confidence

Prepare for interviews using real questions and answers from recent SOC hiring processes

Understand real-time incident scenarios and how to respond effectively

Perform investigations using Splunk SIEM, including log analysis and detection use cases

Conduct malware analysis and identify malicious activity in an enterprise environment

Analyze web application attacks and understand common OWASP vulnerabilities

Investigate and respond to phishing attacks using real-world email examples

Apply threat intelligence to identify, enrich, and respond to threats

Understand the fundamentals and techniques of threat hunting

Learn the incident response lifecycle and how it works in actual SOC operations

Requirements

Need atleast basic understanding of SOC

Description

Are you preparing for a SOC Analyst interview or looking to level up your cybersecurity career? This course is your complete guide to mastering over 100+ real interview questions and answers, carefully curated from recent industry interviews and built on over 10 years of hands-on SOC experience by Gopi Pakanati.Whether you're aiming for SOC L1, L2, or L3 roles, this course gives you more than just theory, you’ll gain real-time answers, practical insights, and scenario-based learning drawn directly from real-world incidents.What You'll Learn:100+ frequently asked SOC interview questions with detailed, real-time answersPractical case studies and real-world scenarios from live SOC environmentsIn-depth analysis and investigation workflows using Splunk SIEMMalware investigation techniques and how to respond to common threatsWeb application attacks and hands-on analysis using OWASP principlesStep-by-step breakdowns of phishing investigations with real email samplesUnderstanding and applying threat intelligence in a SOC settingIntroduction to threat hunting methodologies and common toolsReal-world incident response workflowsVulnerability Management using Qualys, with real use casesWho This Course Is For:Aspiring SOC Analysts (L1, L2, or L3)IT professionals transitioning into cybersecurityCybersecurity students preparing for interviewsAnyone wanting practical exposure to real SOC scenariosThis course is not just theory — it's designed from the ground up by Gopi Pakanati, a seasoned SOC professional with 10+ years of experience handling real-time threats, incidents, and investigations across global enterprises.Get ready to ace your interview and walk into your next role with confidence. Enroll now and start mastering the real SOC world.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Course Overview

Lecture 2 Self Introduction - How to introduce yourself in SOC Interview

Section 2: Core SOC Concepts & Network Fundamentals (frequently asked to test your basics)

Lecture 3 CIA Triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability)

Lecture 4 Hash, Signature, Encryption, and Encoding

Lecture 5 OSI Layers with Realtime SOC Examples

Lecture 6 Cyber kill chain with realtime scenario

Lecture 7 Important Ports (known ports commonly used in operations)

Lecture 8 Authenticated and unauthenticated scanning (which one is effective?)

Lecture 9 Port Scanning with realtime example

Lecture 10 Zero-trust security (why we need Zero trust network in your infra?)

Lecture 11 Defense-in depth

Lecture 12 Vulnerability, Risk and Threat (with realtime example)

Lecture 13 IOA (Indicators of the attack)

Lecture 14 IOC (Indicator of Compromise)

Lecture 15 Difference b/w True positive, false positive, True Negative, False Negative

Lecture 16 TCP and UDP (difference b/w TCP and UDP)

Lecture 17 Flags in networking (investigate DOS and network attack using flags)

Lecture 18 TCP 3-way handshake with SOC Example

Lecture 19 what is PING command (importance in SOC Operations)

Lecture 20 tracert and traceroute commands (how to use this commands in SOC Operations)

Lecture 21 Silver Ticket attack (what is silver ticket and explain with SOC Example)

Lecture 22 Golden Ticket attack - Kerberos Compromise with soc example

Lecture 23 Honey pot

Lecture 24 Difference b/w Public IP and Private IP

Lecture 25 IP address classification

Lecture 26 Network Segmentation

Lecture 27 Difference b/w HIDS and NIDS

Lecture 28 Importance of Network layer in OSI model

Lecture 29 What is DOS and DDOS attack (understanding with flags)

Lecture 30 Difference b/w IDS and IPS

Section 3: Web Application Security & SOC web attacks Investigation

Lecture 31 HTTP Methods (how to conclude which method used for exploitation)

Lecture 32 Status Codes in SOC Investigations (server responses to validate the attack)

Lecture 33 OWASP Top 10 explanation with examples

Lecture 34 What is SQL injection and types of SQLI (with soc example)

Lecture 35 How to investigate SQL injection with SOP

Lecture 36 How to prevent SQLI attack

Lecture 37 What is RCE (remote code execution with example)

Lecture 38 PHP code injection

Lecture 39 Directory or path traversal attack with soc example

Lecture 40 Difference b/w Local File inclusion and Remote File Inclusion (LFI&RFI)

Lecture 41 Difference b/w SSRF and CSRF attack

Lecture 42 WAF & how to investigate (what is web application firewall and it's importance)

Lecture 43 Important IOC for web applications

Lecture 44 what is URL-encoding and Base64 encoding

Section 4: Malware Investigation, IOC of malware, LoLbins and EDR, XDR & MDR

Lecture 45 What is malware and types of malware

Lecture 46 IOC of malware investigation (indicators of compromise for malwares)

Lecture 47 Difference between EDR and AV (most asked question)

Lecture 48 Difference between EDR, XDR and MDR

Lecture 49 why we needed to follow the SOP for Malware Investigation

Lecture 50 OSINT tools for Malware Investigation

Lecture 51 What is the immediate action if MALICIOUS File not Quarantined

Lecture 52 What are the important malicious processes commonly associated with malware file

Lecture 53 What is SLA and how to meet SLA for Malware Incidents

Lecture 54 How to whitelisting files in Sophos MDR

Lecture 55 Important Event_ID's for Malwares Investigation

Lecture 56 File-less Malware and LoLBins

Lecture 57 What is Adware and realtime example

Lecture 58 How to investigate Ransomware in your current project

Section 5: Phishing Email Analysis (IOC, SOP, Phishing Link, Malicious Attachment..)

Lecture 59 Email Hops & Mail Flow Analysis

Lecture 60 what is SPF, DKIM & DMARC - Email Authentication Explained with SOC example

Lecture 61 importance of email security gateway in SOC Operations

Lecture 62 Common Phishing Attacks

Lecture 63 IOC for Phishing Email Investigation

Lecture 64 Real-Time Phishing Email Analysis & investigation with incident

Lecture 65 Analyzing Phishing Link Interactions

Lecture 66 What happens if the "Return-Path" and "Received-From" fields are not the same?

Lecture 67 What are the important email headers that helps for soc investigation

Lecture 68 Employee Clicked the Attachment in phishing email (what is your next action?)

Lecture 69 how to confirm whether Employee clicked on phishing link or not

Lecture 70 what is the use of Zscaler, and have you work with zscaler in your current proje

Section 6: Windows Security & SOC Incidents and Investigations

Lecture 71 What is most common used event id for SOC investigation

Lecture 72 Windows authentication and SAM file

Lecture 73 Where logs are stored in Windows & Important Log Sources (log path)

Lecture 74 Logon types and importance in SOC Investigation

Lecture 75 Difference b/w Password Spraying and Brute force attack

Lecture 76 What is Mimikatz

Lecture 77 What is the Event ID: 4624, 4625, and 4740 (which attacks are align with this)

Lecture 78 Malicious Powershell Usage Detection and Analysis

Section 7: Linux Monitoring & SOC Investigations

Lecture 79 What are the common Linux commands with realtime scenario

Lecture 80 Linux log source location and important logs

Lecture 81 How to Investigate brute force attack and Importance of auth.log

Lecture 82 User management commands & Unauthorized user creation investigation

Lecture 83 Filesystem in linux

Lecture 84 privileged, user group changes and switching users

Lecture 85 File permissions changes

Section 8: SIEM with Splunk – Use-cases, Deployments, Finetunning, Queries, Commands

Lecture 86 Splunk Architecture & Splunk Components (most asked question maybe 1st question)

Lecture 87 Splunk common ports

Lecture 88 Commands used in Splunk for queries and investigation

Lecture 89 What is Splunk and why we need Splunk for SOC Operations

Lecture 90 Difference b/w Stats and tstats commands in SOC Investigation

Lecture 91 What is indexer in Splunk

Lecture 92 What is Search head and indexer

Lecture 93 Difference b/w Splunk Enterprise & Cloud and Current version

Lecture 94 Search head cluster

Lecture 95 What is Finetunning and Splunk SPL searches for Finetunning

Section 9: VMDR - Vulnerability management with Qualys Guard

Lecture 96 What is Zero-day Vulnerability

Lecture 97 What is CVE and CVSS (how we use this in your VM report)

Lecture 98 Vulnerability Management Lifecycle with example

Lecture 99 How you handled zero-day vulnerability with realtime

Section 10: Resume templates for L1, L2, L3

Lecture 100 Resume for L1, L2

Lecture 101 Resume for L1

Aspiring SOC Analysts (L1, L2, or L3) preparing for job interviews in cybersecurity,IT professionals looking to transition into a Security Operations Center (SOC) role,Cybersecurity students or recent graduates aiming to land their first SOC job,Working professionals preparing for internal role transitions or promotions within SOC teams,Learners who want real-time, practical insights into how threats are investigated and resolved,Those interested in hands-on exposure to tools like Splunk, Qualys, and real-world incident workflows,Job seekers looking for an edge in interviews with actual Q&A from recent SOC interview panels,Anyone interested in learning phishing analysis, malware investigations, threat hunting, and vulnerability management through real scenarios