Identify the malware analysis technique in which the investigators must take a snapshot of the...

The technique described—taking a snapshot of the baseline state of the forensic workstation before executing malware—aligns withMonitoring host integrity. In malware forensics, investigators often perform controlled execution (dynamic analysis) and need a reliable way to identifywhat changed on the systemas a direct result of the malware run. Host integrity monitoring is a structured approach where the examiner first captures aknown-good baselineof critical system elements such as file system state (key directories, system binaries), registry/configuration state, running services, installed drivers, scheduled tasks, and sometimes hash inventories of important files. After malware execution, the investigator captures a second snapshot and performsdifferential comparisonto determine newly created/modified files, persistence mechanisms, configuration changes, dropped payloads, and tampering attempts.

This baseline-before/after comparison is fundamental for attributing changes to the sample, supporting repeatability, and documenting evidence in a defensible manner. The other options do not require a workstation baseline snapshot in this sense:online malware scanningchecks a file against signatures/reputation services;string searchextracts readable strings from binaries; andfile fingerprintingtypically refers to hashing to uniquely identify a file, not system-wide state comparison. Therefore, the correct answer isMonitoring host integrity (B).