An incident involves a phishing campaign that delivered a malicious macro-enabled document. After containment, the IR team must identify all affected users. Which data source most efficiently identifies who opened the document?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation and Infographic
Here's the deal — a is correct because email gateway logs identify all recipients (the delivery scope), and endpoint telemetry (process creation events showing Word/macro execution) confirms which users actually opened and ran the macro — providing a definitive affected host list. B is wrong because user surveys are unreliable; many users will not remember or may be reluctant to admit opening a suspicious file.
Full explanation below image
Full Explanation
A is correct because email gateway logs identify all recipients (the delivery scope), and endpoint telemetry (process creation events showing Word/macro execution) confirms which users actually opened and ran the macro — providing a definitive affected host list. B is wrong because user surveys are unreliable; many users will not remember or may be reluctant to admit opening a suspicious file. C is wrong because searching sent items only shows the attacker's sent copies, not delivery to recipients. D is wrong because AV may not detect the malware (especially custom/obfuscated payloads), leaving undetected infections out of scope.