Which of the following is a best practice for searching in Splunk?
Correct Answer:
A
In Splunk,streaming commandsprocess each event individually as it is passed through the search pipeline and should be placed beforeaggregating commands, which operate on the entire set of results at once. This best practice ensures efficient processing and minimizes resource usage, as streaming commands reduce the amount of data before aggregation occurs. This approach leads to faster and more efficient searches. In contrast, the other options, such as using wildcards excessively or searching over all time, can lead to performance issues and excessive data processing.
A Risk Notable Event has been triggered in Splunk Enterprise Security, an analyst investigates the alert, and determines it is a false positive. What metric would be used to define the time between alert creation and close of the event?
Correct Answer:
A
In incident response and cybersecurity operations, Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) is a key metric. It measures the average time it takes from when an alert is created to when it is resolved or closed. In the scenario, an analyst identifies a Risk Notable Event as a false positive and closes it; the time taken from the alert's creation to its closure is what MTTR measures. This metric is crucial in understanding how efficiently a security team responds to alerts and incidents, thus contributing to overall security posture improvement.
Which Enterprise Security framework provides a mechanism for running preconfigured actions within the Splunk platform or integrating with external applications?
Correct Answer:
D
Adaptive Response is a feature in Splunk's Enterprise Security (ES) framework that allows security teams to automate actions and responses based on alerts or notable events. This feature is pivotal for orchestrating automated incident response processes, reducing the time between detection and response, and integrating Splunk with external systems to trigger appropriate actions.
✑ Purpose:Adaptive Response enables the automation of specific tasks or workflows
based on security events detected by Splunk ES. For instance, it can trigger actions such as isolating a compromised host, blocking IP addresses, or enriching data by querying additional sources when a notable event occurs.
✑ Mechanism:When a notable event is identified within the Splunk platform, Adaptive
Response can execute a series of predefined actions. These actions can be configured within the Splunk interface, allowing them to run automatically or with manual approval depending on the organization's needs. This capability is essential for streamlining security operations, especially in environments where quick response is critical.
✑ Integration with External Applications:One of the key features of Adaptive
Response is its ability to integrate with third-party security tools and solutions. This integrationextends the capabilities of Splunk by allowing it to interact with other systems like firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools, and ticketing systems. This ensures a coordinated and comprehensive defense mechanism.
✑ Usage in Security Operations:Security analysts often rely on Adaptive Response
for managing and automating common security tasks, such as:
✑ Splunk Documentation:Splunk Enterprise Security has detailed guides and resources explaining how Adaptive Response functions within the platform and how to configure and use it effectively. You can access the official documentation for more in-depth technical instructions and examples.
✑ Splunk Education:Splunk offers training courses specifically for Splunk ES, where Adaptive Response is covered as a key topic. These resources provide practical insights and best practices from experienced Splunk users.
✑ Security Analyst Community Discussions:Forums and community discussions are excellent resources where analysts share their experiences and configurations using Adaptive Response, often with detailed examples and troubleshooting tips.
References:Adaptive Response is a powerful tool for any Security Operations Center (SOC) aiming to enhance their incident response capabilities, making it a critical feature within Splunk's Enterprise Security framework.
What is the main difference between hypothesis-driven and data-driven Threat Hunting?
Correct Answer:
B
The main difference between hypothesis-driven and data-driven threat hunting lies in the approach. Inhypothesis-drivenhunting, the hunter starts with a theory or hypothesis about what kind of malicious activity might be occurring and then searches the data to confirm or refute that hypothesis. On the other hand,data-drivenhunting involves sifting through existing datasets to uncover patterns, anomalies, or activities that were not initially suspected. Hypothesis-driven approaches are more focused and often guided by threat intelligence or knowledge of attacker behaviors, while data-driven approaches rely on broad data analysis to identify unexpected threats.
An analyst is looking at Web Server logs, and sees the following entry as the last web request that a server processed before unexpectedly shutting down: 147.186.119.107 - - [28/Jul/2006:10:27:10 -0300] "POST /cgi-bin/shutdown/ HTTP/1.0" 200 3333
What kind of attack is most likely occurring?
Correct Answer:
B
The log entry indicates aPOST /cgi-bin/shutdown/request, which suggests that a command was sent to shut down the server via a CGI script. This kind of activity is indicative of aDenial of Service (DoS) attackbecause it involves sending a specific command that causes the server to stop functioning or shut down. This is different from a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which typically involves overwhelming the server with traffic rather than exploiting a specific command.
