An organization with a web application was compromised, and the attacker was able to download...

Option B. Directory Traversal attack is the best answer because the suspicious string appears to represent encoded path manipulation , which is strongly associated with traversal attempts aimed at navigating directories outside the intended web root. CHFI v11 explicitly includes Investigating Cross-Site Scripting, SQL Injection, and Directory Traversal Attacks under web-application forensics, so candidates are expected to recognize patterns associated with each attack class.

Directory traversal attacks often rely on encoded or obfuscated path sequences to bypass filters and access restricted files or locations. The presence of repeated encoded path elements in web logs is a classic indicator that the attacker was attempting to manipulate file paths on the server side. That makes directory traversal the most suitable interpretation among the options given.

XSS targets client-side script execution, SQL injection targets database query manipulation, and brute force focuses on repeated authentication attempts. Although the breach ultimately involved downloading the database, the encoded string itself points more directly to path traversal behavior than to a SQL payload. Therefore, under CHFI web-attack investigation objectives, the best answer is Directory Traversal attack .