SPLK-5002: Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense EngineerDemo

Splunk exposes alert actions through the alerts/alert_actions REST endpoint. In the admin user namespace with - for all apps, /servicesNS/admin/-/alerts/alert_actions lists those actions; the table fields include the action title, owning app, and command.

Splunk Enterprise Security uses the ip_intel KV Store collection for IP intelligence and domain indicators, including malicious fully qualified domain names. http_intel is intended for HTTP artifacts such as URLs, referrers, and user agents; service_intel and certificate_intel store service and certificate indicators respectively.

tstats operates on indexed fields in tsidx files rather than scanning raw events, making it faster than an event search followed by stats. Grouping by index and aggregating values(sourcetype) returns each accessible index with its distinct sourcetypes; index=* selects all visible indexes.

In Splunk, a GET request to the alerts/alert_actions REST endpoint accesses the collection of alert actions and returns a list of them.

A risk factor dynamically adjusts the risk score associated with an asset or identity according to defined characteristics. For example, privileged users or critical assets can have their risk scores multiplied by a specified value. Splunk Enterprise Security also supports additive risk factors. Splunk documentation

Late indexing can cause events to fall outside consecutive, non-overlapping detection windows. The detection time window should be increased by adding sufficient look-back time to cover the ingestion delay, so a later execution can detect an event whose event timestamp precedes its indexing time.

HTTP 403 Forbidden indicates that the server understood the request but refuses to fulfill it; when credentials are supplied, they may be insufficient to grant access. This corresponds to asset credentials that lack adequate permissions.

The Assets & Identities Framework adds entity context to events, Risk Factoring adjusts risk according to that context, and Annotations add security-framework context. Splunk documentation describes asset and identity data as enrichment and annotations as additional context for risk-based alerting.

Splunk Security Essentials Data Inventory identifies and organizes the products and data-source categories configured in the environment, supporting a baseline of available data sources.

Correlation search throttling suppresses duplicate matching results for a configured interval, which reduces repeated notable events associated with the same potential incident.

The */2 * * * * cron schedule runs the search every two minutes, but earliest=-60m@m through latest=now repeatedly evaluates a time span of at least an hour. The search schedule and time range are therefore misaligned, creating heavily overlapping evaluations and risking detection coverage problems if scheduled executions cannot keep pace. Splunk recommends matching the execution interval to the search time range to avoid overlaps or gaps.

Windows Security Event ID 4740 records that a user account was locked out. A high count of these events grouped by user therefore detects excessive user account lockouts.

Search macros are reusable chunks of Search Processing Language (SPL) that can be inserted into other search strings, where they expand to their defined SPL.

The Automation Broker requires outbound/egress HTTPS connectivity to the Splunk SOAR Cloud instance and outbound connectivity on the applicable port to communicate with the managed service or endpoint. It does not require inbound network connections.

A continuous schedule prioritizes data completeness: the search is not skipped when it cannot execute at its configured time, preventing gaps. In contrast, a real-time schedule can be skipped and does not backfill the missed data.

CIM tags categorize events by their event type and act as data-model constraints. This lets a data model include relevant events even when they originate from different sources or use overlapping field names.

The datamodel command returns data model definitions as JSON, including model-level details such as the description, display name, model name, and object information.

Risk-based alerting stores risk events in the Risk Index and creates a risk notable only when aggregated activity reaches a configured threshold. Adding access attempts as risk events preserves them for analysis and reporting without turning each attempt into a notable. Assigning higher criticality to critical assets enriches the activity with asset context so those assets are prioritized. Splunk documents that risk-based alerting aggregates risk events before creating a notable and that asset context is used to identify critical assets and prioritize their associated risk.

The Traffic Center panel uses the Network Traffic data model, specifically All_Traffic.action. Splunk Enterprise Security dashboard panels rely on data model acceleration; therefore, the Network Traffic data model must be accelerated for the panel to populate from CIM-compliant network events.

A Splunk SOAR playbook should automate the organization’s approved operational workflow. An existing Standard Operating Procedure defines the required tasks and process; Splunk documentation describes case-management tasks as mapping to defined SOPs and permits actions and playbooks to be launched as part of those tasks.

The Vulnerabilities data model contains both the cve identifier and vendor_product, which identifies the vendor and product that detected the vulnerability. Using tstats with summariesonly=true restricts results to the accelerated data model’s summary and excludes unsummarized raw data; grouping by vendor_product produces the required vendor-and-product results for the selected CVE.

The Useful Links field is intended for supplemental reference URLs that analysts can open while triaging a notable finding. An SOP is supporting procedural documentation, so its link belongs there rather than in ordered Next Steps or the list of Recommended Actions.

Splunk SOAR playbooks automate connected security-workflow actions and can run automatically. Integrating the Splunk Attack Analyzer submission with subsequent data-collection actions gives the assigned analyst the evaluation results and supporting information, eliminating manual execution of those required steps.

EDR integrations provide endpoint-focused containment and investigation actions, including blocking malicious hashes or processes, quarantining or isolating a device, and retrieving indicator information. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint documentation describes hash-based blocking, process-related blocking, and device isolation as endpoint response capabilities.