Question 400
Two hosts produce events with timestamps ten minutes apart because their clocks are misconfigured. Which investigative correction is necessary before building a causal timeline?
Explanation
Correct Answer
A coherent timeline needs comparable timestamps to infer sequence across sources. Forensic attribution and event reconstruction require trustworthy identity, time ordering and acquisition provenance across the relevant evidence sources. The case turns on two hosts produce events with timestamps ten minutes apart because their clocks are misconfigured; “Normalize against reliable time synchronization and known offsets” addresses that precise condition. “Sort events only by log file size” is not equivalent because file length has no necessary relation to event occurrence time.
Incorrect Answers
Uncorrected drift can reverse the apparent event order. Forensic attribution and event reconstruction require trustworthy identity, time ordering and acquisition provenance across the relevant evidence sources. In the reported situation, two hosts produce events with timestamps ten minutes apart because their clocks are misconfigured. The effective mechanism is “Normalize against reliable time synchronization and known offsets”: a coherent timeline needs comparable timestamps to infer sequence across sources.
Discarding evidence conceals the clock problem rather than resolving it. The evidence is two hosts produce events with timestamps ten minutes apart because their clocks are misconfigured. Telemetry provides evidence and may trigger a response; it does not automatically deny a transaction or remediate its cause. By contrast, “Normalize against reliable time synchronization and known offsets” operates on the specific concern: a coherent timeline needs comparable timestamps to infer sequence across sources.
File length has no necessary relation to event occurrence time. Telemetry provides evidence and may trigger a response; it does not automatically deny a transaction or remediate its cause. Here the decisive fact is two hosts produce events with timestamps ten minutes apart because their clocks are misconfigured. “Normalize against reliable time synchronization and known offsets” matches that requirement because a coherent timeline needs comparable timestamps to infer sequence across sources.






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