SPLK-5002 Exam Dumps - Splunk Cybersecurity Defense Analyst Questions and Answers

Why Useprops.confto Assign Sourcetypes?

In Splunk, sourcetypes define the format and structure of incoming data. Assigning the correct sourcetype ensures that logs are parsed, indexed, and searchable correctly.

????How Doesprops.confHelp?

props.confallows manual sourcetype assignment based on source or host.

Ensures that logs are indexed with the correct parsing rules (timestamps, fields, etc.).

????Example Configuration inprops.conf:

ini

CopyEdit

[source::/var/log/auth.log]

sourcetype = auth_logs

✅This forces all logs from/var/log/auth.logto be assigned sourcetype=auth_logs.

Why Not the Other Options?

❌B. Define the sourcetype in the search head – Sourcetypes are assigned at ingestion time, not at search time.❌C. Configure the sourcetype in the deployment server – The deployment server manages configurations, butprops.confis what actually assigns sourcetypes.❌D. Use REST API calls to tag sourcetypes dynamically – REST APIs help modify configurations, but they don’t assign sourcetypes directly during ingestion.

References & Learning Resources

????Splunkprops.confDocumentation:https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Admin/Propsconf ????Best Practices for Sourcetype Management: https://www.splunk.com/en_us/blog/tips-and-tricks ????Splunk Data Parsing Guide: https://splunkbase.splunk.com

Audit-ready reports help demonstrate compliance with security policies and regulations (e.g., PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001, NIST).

✅1. Including Evidence of Compliance with Regulations (A)

Reports must show security controls, access logs, and incident response actions.

Example:

A PCI DSS compliance report tracks privileged user access logs and unauthorized access attempts.

✅2. Ensuring Reports Are Time-Stamped (C)

Provides chronological accuracy for security incidents and log reviews.

Example:

Incident response logs should include detection, containment, and remediation timestamps.

✅3. Automating Report Scheduling (D)

Enables automatic generation and distribution of reports to stakeholders.

Example:

A weekly audit report on security logs is auto-emailed to compliance officers.

❌Incorrect Answers:

B. Excluding all technical metrics → Security reports must include event logs, IP details, and correlation results.

E. Using predefined report templates exclusively → Reports should be customized for compliance needs.

????Additional Resources:

Splunk Compliance Reporting Guide

Automating Security Reports in Splunk

Why Are These Practices Essential for SOP Development?

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)are crucial for ensuring consistent, repeatable, and effective security operations in aSecurity Operations Center (SOC). Strengthening SOP development ensuresefficiency, clarity, and adaptabilityin responding to incidents.

1️⃣Regular Updates Based on Feedback (Answer A)

Security threats evolve, andSOPs must be updatedbased onreal-world incidents, analyst feedback, and lessons learned.

Example: Anew ransomware variantis detected; theSOP is updatedto include aspecific containment playbookin Splunk SOAR.

2️⃣Collaborating with Cross-Functional Teams (Answer C)

Effective SOPs requireinput from SOC analysts, threat hunters, IT, compliance teams, and DevSecOps.

Ensures thatall relevant security and business perspectivesare covered.

Example: ASOC team collaborates with DevOpsto ensure that acloud security response SOPaligns with AWS security controls.

3️⃣Including Detailed Step-by-Step Instructions (Answer D)

SOPs should provideclear, actionable, and standardizedsteps for security analysts.

Example: ASplunk ES incident response SOPshould include:

How to investigate a security alertusing correlation searches.

How to escalate incidentsbased on risk levels.

How to trigger a Splunk SOAR playbookfor automated remediation.

Why Not the Other Options?

❌B. Focusing solely on high-risk scenarios–All security events matter, not just high-risk ones.Low-level alertscan be early indicators of larger threats.❌E. Excluding historical incident data– Past incidents providevaluable lessonsto improveSOPs and incident response workflows.

References & Learning Resources

????Best Practices for SOPs in Cybersecurity:https://www.nist.gov/cybersecurity-framework ????Splunk SOAR Playbook SOP Development: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/SOAR ????Incident Response SOPs with Splunk: https://splunkbase.splunk.com

Why Use Risk-Based Dashboards for Tracking Threat Trends?

Risk-based dashboards in Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) provide a structured way to track threats over time.

????How Risk-Based Dashboards Help:✅Aggregate security events into risk scores → Helps prioritize high-risk activities.✅Show historical trends of threat activity.✅Correlate multiple risk factors across different security events.

????Example in Splunk ES:????Scenario: A SOC team tracks insider threat activity over 6 months.✅The Risk-Based Dashboard shows:

Users with rising risk scores over time.

Patterns of malicious behavior (e.g., repeated failed logins + data exfiltration).

Correlation between different security alerts (e.g., phishing clicks → malware execution).

Why Not the Other Options?

❌A. Event sampling – Helps with performance optimization, not threat trend tracking.❌C. Summary indexing – Stores precomputed data but is not designed for tracking risk trends.❌D. Data model acceleration – Improves search speed, but doesn’t track security trends.

References & Learning Resources

????Splunk ES Risk-Based Alerting Guide: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/ES ????Tracking Security Trends Using Risk-Based Dashboards: https://splunkbase.splunk.com ????How to Build Risk-Based Analytics in Splunk: https://www.splunk.com/en_us/blog/security

Summary indexing in Splunk improves search efficiency by storing pre-aggregated data, reducing the need to process large datasets repeatedly.

Key Benefits of Summary Indexing:

Improves Search Performance on Aggregated Data (B)

Reduces query execution time by storing pre-calculated results.

Helps SOC teams analyze trends without running resource-intensive searches.

Increases Data Retention Period (D)

Raw logs may have short retention periods, but summary indexes can store key insights for longer.

Useful for historical trend analysis and compliance reporting.

Why is Asset and Identity Information Important in Correlation Searches?

Correlation searches in Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) analyze security events to detect anomalies, threats, and suspicious behaviors. Adding asset and identity information significantly improves security detection and response by:

1️⃣Enhancing the Context of Detections – (Answer A)

Helps analysts understand the impact of an event by associating security alerts with specific assets and users.

Example: If a failed login attempt happens on a critical server, it’s more serious than one on a guest user account.

2️⃣Prioritizing Incidents Based on Asset Value – (Answer C)

High-value assets (CEO’s laptop, production databases) need higher priority investigations.

Example: If malware is detected on a critical finance server, the SOC team prioritizes it over a low-impact system.

Why Not the Other Options?

❌B. Reducing the volume of raw data indexed – Asset and identity enrichment adds more metadata;it doesn’t reduce indexed data.❌D. Accelerating data ingestion rates – Adding asset identity doesn’t speed up ingestion; it actually introduces more processing.

References & Learning Resources

????Splunk ES Asset & Identity Framework: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/ES/latest/Admin/Assetsandidentitymanagement ????Correlation Searches in Splunk ES: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/ES/latest/Admin/Correlationsearches

Security teams use Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) and Splunk SOAR to integrate with firewalls, endpoint security, and SIEM tools for automated threat response.

✅Workflow Actions (B) - Key Integration Feature

Allows analysts to trigger automated actions directly from Splunk searches and dashboards.

Can integrate with SOAR playbooks, ticketing systems (e.g., ServiceNow), or firewalls to take action.

Example:

Block an IP on a firewall from a Splunk dashboard.

Trigger a SOAR playbook for automated threat containment.

❌Incorrect Answers:

A. Data Model Acceleration → Speeds up searches, but doesn’t handle integrations.

C. Summary Indexing → Stores summarized data for reporting, not automation.

D. Event Sampling → Reduces search load, but doesn’t trigger automated actions.

????Additional Resources:

Splunk Workflow Actions Documentation

Automating Response with Splunk SOAR

When aSecurity Engineeris building a new security process, theirtop priorityshould be ensuring that the process aligns withcompliance requirements. This is crucial because compliance dictates the legal, regulatory, and industry standards that organizations must follow to protect sensitive data and maintain trust.

Why Compliance is the Top Priority?

Legal and Regulatory Obligations– Many industries are required to follow compliance standards such asGDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, NIST, ISO 27001, and SOX. Non-compliance can lead toheavy fines and legal actions.

Data Protection & Privacy– Compliance ensures that sensitive information is handled securely, preventingdata breachesandunauthorized access.

Risk Reduction– Following compliance standards helps mitigate cybersecurity risks byimplementing security best practicessuch as encryption, access controls, and logging.

Business Reputation & Trust– Organizations that comply with standards buildcustomer confidence and industry credibility.

Audit Readiness– Security teams must ensure that logs, incidents, and processes align with compliance frameworks topass internal/external auditseasily.

How Does Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) Help with Compliance?

Splunk ES is aSecurity Information and Event Management (SIEM)tool that helps organizations meet compliance requirements by:

✅Log Management & Retention– Stores and correlates security logs forauditability and forensic investigation.✅Real-time Monitoring & Alerts– Detects suspicious activity andalerts SOC teams.✅Prebuilt Compliance Dashboards– Comes with out-of-the-box dashboards forPCI-DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, NIST 800-53, and other frameworks.✅Automated Reporting– Generates reports that can be used forcompliance audits.

Example in Splunk ES:A security engineer can createcorrelation searches and risk-based alerting (RBA)to monitor and enforce compliance policies.

How Does Splunk SOAR Help Automate Compliance-Driven Security Processes?

Splunk SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) enhances compliance processes by:

✅Automating Incident Response– Ensures that responses to security threats followpredefined compliance guidelines.✅Automated Evidence Collection– Helps inaudit documentationby automatically collecting logs, alerts, and incident data.✅Playbooks for Compliance Violations– Can automaticallydetect and remediatenon-compliant actions (e.g., blocking unauthorized access).

Example in Splunk SOAR:Aplaybookcan be configured to automaticallyrespond to an unencrypted database storing customer databy triggering a compliance violation alert and notifying the compliance team.

Why Not the Other Options?

❌A. Integrating with legacy systems– While important,compliance is a higher priority. Security engineers shouldmodernizelegacy systems if they pose security risks.❌C. Automating all workflows– Automation is beneficial, but it should not be prioritizedover security and compliance. Some security decisions requirehuman oversight.❌D. Reducing the number of employees– Efficiency is important, butsecurity cannot be sacrificedto cut costs. Skilled SOC analysts and engineers arecritical to cybersecurity defense.

References & Learning Resources

????Splunk Docs – Security Essentials: https://docs.splunk.com/ ????Splunk ES Compliance Dashboards: https://splunkbase.splunk.com/app/3435/ ????Splunk SOAR Playbooks for Compliance: https://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/soar.html ????NIST Cybersecurity Framework & Splunk Integration:https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework

Risk-based detection in Splunk prioritizes alerts based on behavior, threat intelligence, and business impact. Enhancing risk scores and enriching contextual data ensures that SOC teams focus on the most critical threats.

Methods to Enhance Risk-Based Detection:

Defining Accurate Risk Modifiers (A)

Adjusts risk scores dynamically based on asset value, user behavior, and historical activity.

Ensures that low-priority noise doesn’t overwhelm SOC analysts.

Enriching Risk Objects with Contextual Data (D)

Adds threat intelligence feeds, asset criticality, and user behavior data to alerts.

Improves incident triage and correlation of multiple low-level events into significant threats.

The GET method in the Splunk REST API is used to retrieve data from a Splunk index. It allows users and automated scripts to fetch logs, alerts, or query results programmatically.

Key Points About GET in Splunk API:

Used for searching and retrieving logs from indexes.

Can be used to get search results, job status, and Splunk configuration details.

Common API endpoints include:

/services/search/jobs/{search_id}/results– Retrieves results of a completed search.

/services/search/jobs/export– Exports search results in real-time.