Buffer Overflow Detected!
The words on the console are drenched in red. Red bad.
The level 3 SOC team is looking at you with this urgent escalation. They fear an advanced threat actor is moving around the internal network. This critical endpoint happened to have some extra logging enabled and now reports a java app is being exploited.
Buffer overflow attacks involve finding and exploiting a weakness in memory management of software. They are particularly dangerous in services that can be reached over a network because a successful exploit means the attacker can take over the server without knowing the password. In this case, the java app was available on the internal network and was running some critical business processes. An exploit would mean the attacker has access to sensitive data to steal or encrypt as ransom. The SOC analysts concern is not misplaced; if this is a big incident they face many long nights of pizza and mountain dew in the "war room."
Feeling the gravity of the situation you take a look at the log context. The "buffer overflow attack" happens regularly, about every hour, and has been going on for over a day.
A novel exploit in an internal java application would represent Influence Energy 4 capability. A level 4 threat actor would have lots of resources invested in this effort and want to ensure they reached their goal without being detected. Repeatedly sending a buffer overflow attack to a network service would be terrible operations security and a very fast way to get ejected from the network. That kind of behavior would be negative ROI, meaning negative incentive, for the attacker.
Such a hail Mary approach to exploitation would be indicative of an Influence Energy 1 threat actor using public exploits. Since they have nothing to risk with trying an exploit, they might use one repeatedly like driving a car into a wall over and over, hoping "this time!"
But the enterprise network in this case is already set up for "high three" security energy, with the goal of getting to 4 with a few more practices. The particular critical server is isolated from the internet and regularly vulnerability scanned so it would be immune to Level one or even level 2 threats.
With threat profiles for 1 and 4 ruled out, you further look into the other activity on the system since the buffer overflows have been happening. No new user accounts, software installs or changes in network traffic. This is starting to look more and more like a misbehaving application.
Confidently, you turn to the analysts and say "false positive."
Security Energy allowed you to prepare for the right threats, rule out things that don't make sense in investigation, and get the team focused back on what matters the most.