SPLK-5002 Exam Dumps - Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense Engineer

Splunk prevents duplicate data from being indexed through event parsing, which occurs during the data ingestion process.

How Event Parsing Prevents Duplicate Data:

Splunk’s indexer parses incoming data and assigns unique timestamps, metadata, and event IDs to prevent reindexing duplicate logs.

CRC Checks (Cyclic Redundancy Checks) are applied to avoid duplicate event ingestion.

Index-time filtering and transformation rules help detect and drop repeated data before indexing.

Key Elements of Security Program Documentation

A security program's documentation ensures consistency, compliance, and efficiency in cybersecurity operations.

✅Why Include Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)?

Defines step-by-step processesfor security tasks.

Ensures security teams followstandardized workflowsfor handling incidents, vulnerabilities, and monitoring.

Supportscompliance with regulationslikeNIST, ISO 27001, and CIS controls.

Example:

SOP forincident responseoutlines how analysts escalate security threats.

❌Incorrect Answers:

A. Vendor contract details→ Vendor agreements are important butnot core to a security program's documentation.

B. Organizational hierarchy chart→ Useful for internal structure butnot essential for security documentation.

D. Financial cost breakdown→ Related to budgeting, not security operations.

📌Additional Resources:

NIST Security Documentation Framework

Splunk Security Operations Guide

Splunk SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) playbooks help SOC teams automate, orchestrate, and respond to threats faster.

✅Key Benefits of SOAR Playbooks

Automates Repetitive Tasks

Reduces manual workload for SOC analysts.

Automates tasks like enriching alerts, blocking IPs, and generating reports.

Orchestrates Multiple Security Tools

Integrates with firewalls, EDR, SIEMs, threat intelligence feeds.

Example: A playbook can automatically enrich an IP address by querying VirusTotal, Splunk, and SIEM logs.

Accelerates Incident Response

Reduces Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR).

Example: A playbook can automatically quarantine compromised endpoints in CrowdStrike after an alert.

❌Incorrect Answers:

A. Manually running searches across multiple indexes → SOAR playbooks are about automation, not manual searches.

C. Improving dashboard visualization capabilities → Dashboards are part of SIEM (Splunk ES), not SOAR playbooks.

D. Enhancing data retention policies → Retention is a Splunk Indexing feature, not SOAR-related.

📌Additional Resources:

Splunk SOAR Playbook Guide

Automating Threat Response with SOAR

Methods to Improve Dashboard Usability in Security Analytics

A well-designed Splunk security dashboard helps SOC teams quickly identify, analyze, and respond to security threats.

✅1. Using Drill-Down Options for Detailed Views (A)

Allows analysts to click on high-level metrics and drill down into event details.

Helps teams pivot from summary statistics to specific security logs.

Example:

Clicking on a failed login trend chart reveals specific failed login attempts per user.

✅2. Standardizing Color Coding for Alerts (B)

Consistent color usage enhances readability and priority identification.

Example:

Red → Critical incidents

Yellow → Medium-risk alerts

Green → Resolved issues

✅3. Adding Context-Sensitive Filters (D)

Filters allow users to focus on specific security events without running new searches.

Example:

A dropdown filter for "Event Severity" lets analysts view only high-risk events.

❌Incorrect Answers:

C. Limiting the number of panels on the dashboard → Dashboards should be optimized, not restricted.

E. Avoiding performance optimization → Performance tuning is essential for responsive dashboards.

📌Additional Resources:

Splunk Dashboard Design Best Practices

Optimizing Security Dashboards in Splunk

Monitoring indexing performance in Splunk is crucial for ensuring efficient data ingestion, search performance, and resource utilization.

Methods to Monitor Indexing Performance Effectively:

Use the Monitoring Console (A)

Provides real-time visibility into indexing performance.

Displays resource utilization, indexing rate, queue health, and disk usage.

Track Indexer Queue Size and Throughput (D)

Monitoring queue sizes prevents indexing bottlenecks.

Ensures data is processed efficiently without delays.

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.

Understanding Data Indexing in Splunk

In Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) and Splunk SOAR, data indexing is a fundamental process that enables efficient storage, retrieval, and searching of data.

✅Why is Data Indexing Important?

Stores raw machine data (logs, events, metrics) in a structured manner.

Enables fast searching through optimized data storage techniques.

Uses an indexer to process, compress, and store data efficiently.

Why the Correct Answer is B?

Splunk indexes data to store it efficiently while ensuring fast retrieval for searches, correlation searches, and analytics.

It assigns metadata to indexed events, allowing SOC analysts to quickly filter and search logs.

❌Incorrect Answers & Explanations

A. To ensure data normalization → Splunk normalizes data using Common Information Model (CIM), not indexing.

C. To secure data from unauthorized access → Splunk uses RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) and encryption for security, not indexing.

D. To visualize data using dashboards → Dashboards use indexed data for visualization, but indexing itself is focused on data storage and retrieval.

📌Additional Resources:

Splunk Data Indexing Documentation

Splunk Architecture & Indexing Guide

Splunk SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) helps SOC teams automate threat detection, investigation, and response by integrating security tools and orchestrating workflows.

Primary Purpose of Splunk SOAR:

Automates Security Tasks (B)

Reduces manual efforts by using playbooks to handle routine incidents automatically.

Accelerates threat mitigation by automating response actions (e.g., blocking malicious IPs, isolating endpoints).

Orchestrates Security Workflows (B)

Connects SIEM, threat intelligence, firewalls, endpoint security, and ITSM tools into a unified security workflow.

Ensures faster and more effective threat response across multiple security tools.