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General SecOps Questions

  1. What is ServiceNow Security Operations (SecOps)?
    • This question tests the candidate's basic understanding of the module and its role in automating and managing security operations.
  2. Can you explain the main components of ServiceNow SecOps?
    • Expected answer should cover Security Incident Response (SIR), Vulnerability Response (VR), Threat Intelligence, and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR).
  3. How does SecOps integrate with ITSM in ServiceNow?
    • This explores how security incidents and vulnerabilities are handled in the context of overall IT service management.
  4. Why is it important to prioritize security incidents and vulnerabilities? How does ServiceNow SecOps help with that?
    • The interviewer is looking for the candidate's knowledge on the importance of risk-based prioritization and how SecOps uses threat intelligence and business impact to prioritize.
  5. What challenges have you faced while implementing SecOps in ServiceNow? How did you overcome them?
    • A practical question to assess real-world implementation experience and problem-solving skills.

Security Incident Response (SIR) Questions

  1. Can you walk us through the process of creating and managing a security incident in ServiceNow?
    • Here, the candidate should explain the end-to-end workflow for incident creation, triage, response, and resolution.
  2. How would you integrate a SIEM tool (e.g., Splunk, QRadar) with ServiceNow to automate security incident creation?
    • This evaluates the understanding of how SIEM integrations work and how incidents can be automatically generated based on threat detection.
  3. How do playbooks and workflows help in automating incident response in SecOps?
    • The candidate should be able to explain the role of playbooks in providing predefined workflows for responding to specific security incidents.
  4. What steps would you take to reduce Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) in a security incident response?
    • This gauges the candidate's approach to optimizing security response times using automation, workflows, and integrations.
  5. Can you explain how incident enrichment works with external threat intelligence feeds in ServiceNow SecOps?
    • The candidate should discuss how threat intelligence enriches incidents to provide more context for faster decision-making.

Vulnerability Response (VR) Questions

  1. What is the role of Vulnerability Response (VR) in ServiceNow SecOps, and how does it work?
    • Expected answer includes VR's role in identifying, prioritizing, and remediating vulnerabilities.
  2. Which vulnerability scanners can integrate with ServiceNow Vulnerability Response?
    • Candidate should mention tools like Qualys, Tenable, and Rapid7, and explain how data is imported into ServiceNow.
  3. How does ServiceNow prioritize vulnerabilities?
    • The focus should be on factors such as asset criticality, threat intelligence, exploitability, and business impact.
  4. Describe the workflow for assigning and tracking remediation tasks for vulnerabilities in ServiceNow.
    • The candidate should explain how vulnerabilities are assigned to IT teams, how remediation tasks are tracked, and how automation is used to streamline this process.
  5. How do you measure the effectiveness of Vulnerability Response (VR) in ServiceNow?
    • They should mention key metrics such as vulnerability remediation time, percentage of vulnerabilities closed on time, and vulnerability trends.

Threat Intelligence Questions

  1. How does ServiceNow SecOps integrate with external threat intelligence platforms?
    • The answer should include integration with platforms like VirusTotal, Recorded Future, and others to enrich security incidents.
  2. What is the importance of threat enrichment in incident response, and how does ServiceNow facilitate this?
    • Candidate should discuss how threat intelligence adds context to incidents, helping security teams make quicker and more informed decisions.
  3. Can you provide an example of a scenario where external threat intelligence helped speed up incident resolution?
    • A practical example will showcase how the candidate used threat intelligence to resolve real incidents faster.

SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) Questions

  1. What is SOAR in ServiceNow SecOps, and how does it help automate security operations?
    • The interviewer expects an explanation of how SOAR automates workflows, orchestrates tasks across tools, and speeds up response times.
  2. How would you automate a common security task using ServiceNow SOAR?
    • The candidate should give a practical example, such as automating the response to a phishing incident or running a malware scan on an endpoint after detection.
  3. What are the benefits of using playbooks in SOAR, and how do you create them in ServiceNow?
    • The focus should be on improving consistency, reducing manual errors, and speeding up incident response.
  4. Describe how ServiceNow's Flow Designer is used in the context of security automation.
    • Candidate should discuss how Flow Designer is used to create automated workflows and playbooks to handle security incidents or vulnerabilities.

Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) Integration

  1. How does ServiceNow SecOps integrate with Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) to manage risk?
    • The candidate should explain how the integration allows continuous monitoring, risk-based prioritization, and alignment with security policies and frameworks (e.g., NIST, ISO 27001).
  2. What metrics would you track to ensure compliance with security standards when using SecOps?
    • They should mention metrics like incident closure times, audit trail records, policy violations, and risk score monitoring.

Metrics and Reporting Questions

  1. What key performance indicators (KPIs) would you track in ServiceNow SecOps to measure the success of your security operations?
    • Expected answer includes KPIs like Mean Time to Detect (MTTD), Mean Time to Respond (MTTR), vulnerability remediation time, and incident closure rate.
  2. How do you use ServiceNow dashboards to track the performance of SecOps?
    • The candidate should explain the customization and usage of dashboards for tracking real-time incident response, vulnerability trends, and overall security posture.

Practical Scenarios

  1. Describe a situation where you had to handle a major security incident using ServiceNow SecOps. What steps did you take to resolve it?
    • A practical scenario to test real-world experience and decision-making during high-pressure security incidents.
  2. How would you approach integrating ServiceNow SecOps with other security tools used by an organization?
    • The candidate should mention API integrations, data mapping, and ensuring that workflows across systems are coordinated and optimized.
Interview questions related to ServiceNow's Security Operations (SecOps)
Working Code Asked question October 1, 2024