GIAC Certified Detection Analyst (GCDA) icon

GIAC Certified Detection Analyst (GCDA)

Practitioner Certification

The GIAC Certified Detection Analyst (GCDA) certification proves an individual knows how to collect, analyze, and tactically use modern network and endpoint data sources to detect malicious or unauthorized activity.

Areas Covered

  • SIEM Architecture and SOF-ELK
  • Service Profiling, Advanced Endpoint Analytics, Baselining and User Behavior Monitoring
  • Tactical SIEM Detection and Post-Mortem Analysis

Who is GCDA for?

  • Security Analyst
  • Security Architects
  • Senior Security Engineers
  • Technical Security Managers
  • SOC Analysts
  • SOC Engineers
  • SOC Managers
  • CND Analysts
  • Security Monitoring Specialist
  • System Administrators
  • Cyber Threat Investigators
  • Individuals working to implement Continuous Security Monitoring
  • Individuals working in a hunt team capacity

Exam Format

  • 1 proctored exam
  • 75 questions
  • 2 hours
  • Minimum passing score of 79%

Delivery

NOTE: All GIAC Certification exams are web-based and required to be proctored. There are two proctoring options: remote proctoring through ProctorU, and onsite proctoring through PearsonVUE. Click here for more information.

GIAC certification attempts will be activated in your GIAC account after your application has been approved and according to the terms of your purchase. Details on delivery will be provided along with your registration confirmation upon payment. You will receive an email notification when your certification attempt has been activated in your account. You will have 120 days from the date of activation to complete your certification attempt.

Exam Certification Objectives & Outcome Statements

  • Alert Analysis
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how to analyze endpoint security logs, augment intrusion detection alerts, analyze vulnerability information, correlate malware sandbox logs, handle alerts efficiently, identify which alerts to retain and identify staff training opportunities.
  • Device Discovery
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how an environment can be more fully understood through the use of active and passive device discovery and how this understanding can be used to create baselines and detect anomolous behavior.
  • Endpoint Logging Analysis
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how to discover abnormal activity, establish baselines and optimize logging to find anomalous behavior through the use of endpoint logs, events of interest and host-based firewalls.
  • Endpoint Logging Collection
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how to identify attacks and analyze logs in both Windows and Linux environments and employ scripting to reduce log noise as well as establish collection strategies, both agentless and agent-oriented in these environments.
  • Log Aggregation and Parsing
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how log filters and message brokers can be used during data queuing and storage to enhance log retention and search response times, demonstrate an understanding of the methods and techniques used to perform analysis, analytical reporting, and alerting through the use of visualizations and detection dashboards.
  • Log Collection
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how data gathering strategies, event rates, storage requirements and staffing requirements inform SIEM planning and event logging device architecture, log monitoring for assets, data gathering and preservation strategies and techniques of log collection.
  • Log Output and Storage
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of data queuing, resiliency and storage as well as how to perform analytical reporting and alerting through the use of visualizations and detection dashboards.
  • Network Service Log Analysis
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how to identify attacker characteristics, determine anomalous behavior and establish baseline behavior in common network protocol traffic such as SMTP, DNS, HTTP and HTTPS.
  • Network Service Log Collection & Enrichment
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of detection methods and relevance to log analysis, analyzing common application logs, application of threat intelligence to generic network logs, correlation of network datasets and establishment of network baseline activity.
  • Post-Mortem Analysis
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how to use virtual machines and malware sandboxes, configure systems to generate event log alerts after compromise, identify unusual time-based activity and re-analyze network traffic after an incident.
  • Software Monitoring
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how to identify authorized and unauthorized software, treat scripting tools and command line parameters as a special kind of software and source collection methodology.
  • User Monitoring
    The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how to utilize behavior analytics when analyzing user logons, built-in accounts and system services based on patterns, use network data to discover unauthorized use or assets, configure enterprise wide baseline collection and establish large scale persistence monitoring.

Other Resources

  • Training is available in a variety of modalities including live training and OnDemand.
  • Practical work experience can help ensure that you have mastered the skills necessary for certification
  • College level courses or self paced study through another program or materials may meet the needs for mastery.
  • Get information about the procedure to contest exam results.

Practice Tests

  • These tests are a simulation of the real exam allowing you to become familiar with the test engine and style of questions.
  • Practice exams are a gauge to determine if your preparation methods are sufficient.
  • The practice bank questions are limited so you may encounter the same question on practice tests when multiple practice tests are purchased.
  • Practice exams never include actual exam questions.
  • Purchase a GCDA practice test here.
  • GIAC recommends leveraging additional study methods for test preparation.

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