A security analyst it investigating an incident to determine what an attacker was able to...

The SIEM log shows that the user opened an email attachment named “Invoice.xlsx” and then executed a PowerShell script that downloaded and ran a malicious file from a remote server. This indicates that the attacker was able to bypass the application approve list by emailing a spreadsheet attachment with an embedded PowerShell in the file. This is a common technique used by malware authors to evade detection and deliver their payloads1.