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Nicole Dobrovolskyy

Marketing, SOCSimulator

Nicole researches and structures SOCSimulator's blog guides and product announcements, from SOC playbook templates and the differences between EDR, antivirus and XDR to the launch of the KQL Query tab. Nicole also looks after how each post is found in search, so the answer an analyst needs is the one they actually find.

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Articles by Nicole Dobrovolskyy

A sealed dark glass cube behind a translucent wall, with one thin amber thread passing through to light up a few dots on a grid

Best Practices

VirusTotal Alternatives: Check a File Without Uploading It

VirusTotal alternatives sorted by what they need from you: hash-only lookups, public sandboxes that publish your upload, and self-hosted tools.

Nicole Dobrovolskyy15 min read
Three nested translucent glass frames with thin amber edges, each wider than the last, on a dark background

Best Practices

EDR vs Antivirus vs XDR: Key Differences for SOC Analysts

EDR vs antivirus vs XDR: what each one blocks and records, whether XDR is better than antivirus, and what SOC analysts can conclude from each alert.

Nicole Dobrovolskyy8 min read
Three panels of copper, a night-side Earth with city lights, and white marble above the words Now you can query.

Product Updates

Introducing the SOCSimulator Query Tab: Practice KQL in Your Browser

Practice KQL against the logs of a real operation: Windows, Linux and macOS data, nothing to set up. What it does and its limits.

Nicole Dobrovolskyy6 min read
Abstract dark diagram of many dim branching paths with one amber route traced unbroken from left to right

Best Practices

SOC Playbook Template: Steps, Queries and Thresholds

Copy this SOC playbook template: triggers, steps, SPL/KQL/Lucene queries and branch thresholds for one alert type, with two filled-in examples.

Nicole Dobrovolskyy23 min read