← All rangesThe Range · Identity and Access · Engineer level

Impossible Travel

A service account does not go on vacation

You are on the identity and access team, on call. It is 03:55. The alert has been open for fifteen minutes, and the treasury export the account runs fires again at 06:00.

ALERT-20417 · severity medium · identitySIEM correlation rule · 03:40

"Impossible travel: svc-treasury@corp.example. Successful sign-in 02:00 from 192.0.2.20 (head office region). Successful sign-in 03:12 from 203.0.113.77 (country not in operating list). Note: service account, may be cloud egress."

Before you start: how this works

01One objective at a timeYou are always told, in one sentence, what you are trying to establish right now. At this level the full action list is open from the start: knowing which tool exists is part of it.

02Time passesEvery action costs minutes in the story. Nothing is on a real-world timer, so think as long as you like, but the minutes inside the incident have consequences in it.

03Some things cannot be undoneWrong moves make the incident bigger, not just lower-scoring. This one can reach COMPROMISED, and nobody arrives to take it off you.

04Mistakes are the lessonEvery wrong turn is written up at the end with what it cost and what the better move was. Finish the range (any outcome) and its interview pack unlocks.

You are judged on three things. Accuracy: did you work out what was really wrong and deal with it. Economy: how directly you got there, in the incident’s own minutes. Integrity: what you preserved, who you told, and whether you claimed anything you had not established. The third is the one people fail.

Finish it, with any outcome, and its interview pack unlocks: 4 questions with weak, good and strong answers, the follow-up, and the trap.

Impossible Travel · ALERT-20417 · severity medium · identity

Wall clock: 03:55
Time spent: 0m
Situation: ·
Severity: ·

Choose one

Incident log

Everything you do, in order. This is what a real handover is written from.

Nothing has happened yet.

How bad is it

Wrong moves push this up. Containing the problem pushes it back down.

What you have established

Facts you have actually observed, not guesses.

Nothing yet.