Splunk SPLK-5001 - Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense Analyst

Tactical intelligenceprovides insights into the specific behaviors, tools, and techniques used by threat actors. When a Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) team produces a report detailing a threat actor’s typical behaviors and intent, they are delivering tactical intelligence. This type of intelligence is actionable and directly supports defenders in identifying, mitigating, and responding to threats in a timely manner.

Tactical Intelligence:

Focuses on the specific, detailed activities of threat actors, such as the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) they employ.

This intelligence helps in creating defensive strategies, such as refining detection rules, improving incident response plans, and enhancing threat hunting efforts.

Incorrect Options:

A. Operational:Operational intelligence involves real-time information and insights that support ongoing operations, often within a narrow timeframe.

B. Executive:Executive intelligence is high-level and strategic, intended for decision-makers and typically involves summaries rather than detailed technical information.

D. Strategic:Strategic intelligence is long-term and broad in scope, focusing on overall trends and the geopolitical context, rather than specific TTPs.

CTI Frameworks:Standards such as the MITRE ATT&CK framework, which classify tactical intelligence within the spectrum of threat intelligence.

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TheAsset and Identityframework within Splunk Enterprise Security provides additional automatic context and correlation to fields that exist within raw data. By associating IP addresses, usernames, and other identifiers with known assets and identities within the organization, this framework enhances the context of security events and facilitates moreaccurate and meaningful analysis. This allows analysts to better understand the impact of security incidents and to prioritize their responses based on the criticality of the assets involved.

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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.

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.

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.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Personal Data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. An individual's address, combined with their first and last name, clearly identifies a person, making it Personal Data under GDPR. The other options provided do not meet the GDPR criteria for Personal Data: the birth date of an unidentified user does not identify a person, the name of a deceased individual is not covered under GDPR, and a company’s registration number pertains to an entity rather than a natural person.

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Tacticsare the overarching objectives or strategies attackers use during their operations, whiletechniquesare the specific methods used to achieve these tactics. In this case,gathering information about a target(often referred to as Reconnaissance) is atacticbecause it represents a high-level objective of understanding the target. The other options provided (persistence, phishing, privilege escalation) are specifictechniquesused to achieve the broader goals or tactics.

TheevalSPL expression in Splunk supports several categories of functions, includingJSON functions(e.g.,spath),Text functions(e.g.,substr,trim), andComparison and Conditional functions(e.g.,if,case). However,Threat functionsis not a valid category within theevalcommand. Theevalcommand is primarily used for transforming and manipulating data in various ways, but it does not include a category specifically for threat-related functions.

The log entry showing the same request repeated millions of times indicates aDenial of Service (DoS) Attack, where the server is overwhelmed by a flood of requests to a specific resource, in this case, the/login/page. This type of attack is aimed at making the server unavailable to legitimate users by exhausting its resources.

Denial of Service Attack:

A DoS attack involves a single attacker (or sometimes a small number of sources) sending a massive number of requests to a target server, overwhelming its ability to handle legitimate traffic.

The repetitive log entries reflect the server's inability to process legitimate requests due to the overwhelming number of identical requests.

Incorrect Options:

B. Distributed Denial of Service Attack:This involves multiple sources attacking simultaneously. The log provided does not indicate multiple sources, which would be characteristic of a DDoS attack.

C. Cross-Site Scripting Attack:This attack involves injecting malicious scripts into webpages viewed by other users, not overwhelming a server with traffic.

D. Database Injection Attack:This is an attack against a database via SQL injection or similar techniques, not overwhelming a server with traffic.

Web Server Security:Understanding DoS attacks is critical for securing web servers and mitigating these types of disruptions.

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