Pass the Splunk Cybersecurity Defense Analyst SPLK-5001 Questions and answers with CertsForce

TheRisk Frameworkin Splunk Enterprise Security is designed to raise the threat profile of individuals or assets based on their activities. It allows security teams to assign risk scores to users or devices that engage in suspicious or anomalous behaviors, making it easier to identify entities that may require further investigation.

Risk Framework:

This framework aggregates risk events and calculates risk scores that help in prioritizing alerts and focusing on high-risk entities within the organization.

By identifying and raising the profile of entities involved in suspicious activities, it enables proactive threat detection and response.

Incorrect Options:

A. Threat Intelligence Framework:Integrates threat intelligence feeds but does not directly handle risk scoring of assets.

C. Notable Event Framework:Manages notable events but is not focused on risk profiling.

D. Asset and Identity Framework:Manages asset and identity data, linking them with events, but does not perform risk scoring.

According to Splunk’s Common Information Model (CIM) documentation, when investigating network alerts, the IP address of the host from which an attacker is moving (source) is typically stored in thesrc_ipfield. Thehostfield generally refers to the name of the host that logged the event,destrefers to the destination IP, andsrc_nt_hostrefers to the NetBIOS name of the source host. Thesrc_ipfield is specifically used to denote the source IP address in the context of network communication, which is critical for tracing lateral movement.

Hacktivismrefers to the use of hacking techniques by an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group to promote a political agenda or social cause. Unlike other motivations such as financial gain or espionage, the primary goal of hacktivism is to disrupt, damage, or deface systems to draw attention to a cause or to protest against something the group opposes.

Hacktivism:

APT groups motivated by hacktivism typically target organizations or entities that they see as adversaries to their cause. The attacks can range from defacing websites to launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to disrupt services.

This form of cyber activity is intended to create awareness or send a message, often aligning with the group's ideological beliefs.

Incorrect Options:

B. Cyber espionage:Focuses on gathering intelligence and sensitive information, often for national or corporate advantage, not necessarily for disruption.

C. Financial gain:Involves attacks aimed at monetary theft, not ideologically driven disruption.

D. Prestige:While some attacks are motivated by the desire for recognition, hacktivism specifically refers to ideological causes.

Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) provides various features to enhance security monitoring, analysis, and incident response. One of the powerful features in Splunk ES isAnnotations. This feature allows security analysts to map and categorize correlation search results according to well-known industry frameworks such as the CIS Critical Security Controls, MITRE ATT&CK, and the Lockheed Martin Cyber Kill Chain®.

Purpose of Annotations:

Annotations help analysts understand and categorize security events by aligning them with recognized security frameworks. This alignment provides context, making it easier to understand the nature of threats and how they fit within broader threat models or attack strategies.

How Annotations Work:

When a correlation search in Splunk ES triggers an alert, Annotations can automatically tag the alert with relevant tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) from frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK. This helps in categorizing the event within the context of known attack patterns, offering insights into potential next steps by an attacker and recommended defensive actions.

Annotations can be manually added or configured to be applied automatically based on the nature of the search results.

Integration with Frameworks:

MITRE ATT&CK:Annotations can map alerts to specific techniques and tactics in the MITRE ATT&CK framework, which provides a detailed knowledge base of adversary behaviors, tactics, and techniques.

CIS Critical Security Controls:These controls can also be mapped through annotations, allowing the organization to measure and improve its security posture against these controls.

Lockheed Martin Cyber Kill Chain®:This model focuses on the stages of a cyberattack, and annotations can help identify where in the kill chain a particular alert fits, providing a clearer understanding of the attack’s progression.

Annotations in Splunk ES:Practical Example:Consider a correlation search that detects unusual behavior indicating potential lateral movement within a network. If this alert is annotated with a reference to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, it might map to techniques like "T1021 - Remote Services," which is associated with the lateral movement tactic. This mapping not only categorizes the event but also helps in planning the next steps for containment and investigation.

Efficiency in Response:By aligning alerts with industry frameworks, annotations help in quickly identifying the nature and potential impact of a threat.

Consistency in Analysis:Provides a standardized method for categorizing and responding to alerts, ensuring that all analysts interpret and react to threats in a consistent manner.

Improved Reporting:Allows for better visualization and reporting of threats according to established frameworks, making it easier to communicate risks and actions to stakeholders.

Data Model Acceleration (DMA)in Splunk is used to improve search performance by creating summarized, indexed versions of data models that enable much faster retrieval than querying raw indexed data directly. This acceleration is particularly beneficial for complex searches, dashboards, and reports based on large datasets.

DMA precomputes and stores data aggregates, allowing near real-time responses for repeated queries.

It does not normalize data—that function is handled by CIM and data models themselves.

DMA is unrelated to comparing algorithms or modeling response actions.

According toSplunk documentation, enabling acceleration on data models significantly reduces search latency and enhances user experience, especially in security operations with high volumes of data.

The step-by-step description provided is an example of aTechniqueas defined in the MITRE ATT&CK framework. Techniques are the specific methods adversaries use to achieve their objectives during an attack, such as establishing command and control (C2) channels or delivering payloads via phishing emails. In this scenario, the attacker uses a non-default beacon profile in Cobalt Strike, sends a malicious document via email, and establishes a C2 channel once the victim interacts with the document, all of which are examples of adversary techniques.

The correct order of the examples listed corresponds toTactic, Technique, Procedurein the TTP framework:

Tactic:The high-level goal or objective an adversary tries to accomplish. "Extend movement" (likely meant as "Lateral movement") or "Exploiting a remote service" are tactics that describewhatthe adversary wants to do.

Technique:The general method or approach used to achieve the tactic. "Exploiting a remote service" is a technique, detailing the type of action used in pursuit of the tactic.

Procedure:The specific implementation or instance of a technique. "Use EternalBlue to exploit a remote SMB server" is a concrete procedure, an exact exploit tool or method used.

This hierarchy is fundamental to frameworks likeMITRE ATT&CK, which guides how analysts categorize and investigate adversary behaviors.

AnIntrusion Detection System (IDS)typically sits at the network perimeter and is designed to detect suspicious traffic, including command and control (C2) traffic and other potentially malicious activities.

Intrusion Detection Systems:

IDS are deployed at strategic points within the network, often at the perimeter, to monitor incoming and outgoing traffic for signs of malicious activity.

These systems are configured to detect various types of threats, including C2 traffic, which is a key indicator of compromised systems communicating with an attacker-controlled server.

Incorrect Options:

A. Host-based firewall:This is more focused on controlling traffic at the endpoint level, not at the network perimeter.

B. Web proxy:Primarily used for controlling and filtering web traffic, but not specifically designed to detect C2 traffic.

C. Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR):Focuses on endpoint protection rather than monitoring network perimeter traffic.

In the context of continuous monitoring, theImplement and Collectstage involves adding data sources, creating detections, and building drilldowns. This stage is focused on the practical setup and configuration necessary to ensure that monitoring systems are properly gathering the necessary data and that the relevant detection mechanisms are in place to identify potential threats. Other stages, such asAnalyze and Report, are more focused on the interpretation and presentation of this data after collection.

Splunk Answersis a community-driven Q&A platform where users can ask questions and share knowledge about Splunk. It is known for providing community-sourced answers to a wide range of questions, including SPL (Search Processing Language) queries, configuration issues, and general best practices. Users can contribute by answering questions based on their own experiences, making it a valuable resource for troubleshooting and learning.

B. Splunk Lantern:This is a resource for best practices, how-tos, and use case guides, but it’s not a community-sourced Q&A platform.

C. Splunk Guidebook:This is not a known resource in the context of community-sourced answers.

D. Splunk Documentation:While highly detailed and official, it is not community-sourced but rather maintained by Splunk's own teams.