The observed activity from a privileged account indicates an insider attack, which is when a trusted user or employee misuses their access rights to compromise the security of the organization. Accessing emails and sensitive information, modifying audit logs, and logging in at abnormal times are all signs of malicious behavior by a privileged user who may be trying to steal, tamper, or destroy data, or cover their tracks. An insider attack can cause significant damage to the organization's reputation, operations, and compliance.

Agent-based vulnerability scanning is a method that involves installing software agents on the target systems or networks that can perform local scans and report the results to a central server or console. Agent-based vulnerability scanning can reduce network traffic, as the scans are performed locally and only the results are transmitted over the network. Agent-based vulnerability scanning can also provide more accurate and up-to-date results, as the agents can scan continuously or on- demand, regardless of the system or network status or location.

After recovering a compromised server to its previous state, the analyst should perform forensic analysis to determine the root cause, impact, and scope of the incident, as well as to identify any indicators of compromise, evidence, or artifacts that can be used for further investigation or prosecution.

HSM stands for Hardware Security Module. An HSM is a dedicated computing device that is designed to provide secure storage and management of cryptographic keys and other sensitive data. HSMs are designed to provide a secure environment for the generation, storage, and use of cryptographic keys, as well as the execution of cryptographic operations such as encryption and decryption. This secure environment is necessary to protect the keys from theft or unauthorized access and to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data. By offloading cryptographic functions to an HSM, organizations can improve the security of their data and reduce the risk of security incidents.