Splunk Enterprise Security Reviews

There are lots of use cases such as finding threats, attack factors, and logs. It helps with rogue DNS or brute force attack detection. We have logs related to why a particular account was created. There is alerting. We can get some false positives, but by fine-tuning some of the things, we can reduce false positives.

Splunk is a security monitoring tool. It helps with incident handling, data logging, and observability of metrics. Splunk can handle all these things. Splunk Enterprise security is a premium app of Splunk through which we can have all the threat intelligence and incident reviews. It helps in finding all the attacks and Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs).

We also have dashboards. We can collect logs from different sources and applications. We can also troubleshoot issues. If we are having any issues with an application, we can go to that particular index to see what is the cause. If any application is failing or giving an error, we can troubleshoot the issue. We do not have to log into the server to find the error.

We monitor multiple cloud environments. We have GCP, Azure, and AWS. It is easy to monitor multiple cloud environments using the Splunk Enterprise Security dashboards. Splunk releases inbuilt apps, so by using those apps and add-ons, we can integrate it with our cloud environments. For example, for Azure, they have a Microsoft Cloud Services add-on. We need to register the app in Azure, and after registering the app, we have to use the tenant ID and set it up. There are a lot of inputs, and we can use all those inputs to onboard different logs from Azure. There is also the capability for HTTP event collection.

We have a hybrid environment, and that works best for us. For a lot of things, we cannot just go fully cloud. Hybrid is the best option for us. We are happy with the visibility that Splunk Enterprise Security provides. It is also about how we configure things. If we do not do it in the right way, we will not get visibility. We have to know what kind of tools we are using and what kind of data we are pulling. We cannot pull everything. We have to know what to pull. If we pull only what is required, we would not have any problems.

Splunk Enterprise Security comes with MITRE ATT&CK and Cyber Kill Chain frameworks by default. There are 12 processes in the MITRE ATT&CK framework. We just have to onboard logs, create the data models, and assign those ATPs to monitor all the kill chains. We can monitor all attack vectors and persistent threats that we want to monitor.

Splunk Enterprise Security is good for analyzing malicious activities and detecting breaches. I would rate it a 9 out of 10 for that. It can also go to 10 for different clients based on different requirements.

Along with Splunk Enterprise Security, we also install another Splunk app that has all the threat intelligence. We then feed the data through a CSV file and create the use cases. We set up alerts for those. In the case of an event, an alert is generated and assigned to a particular SOC analyst. There can be some false positives, but with proper configuration and filtering, they can be reduced.

Splunk Enterprise Security has been very beneficial and valuable for us. Our application teams can use the indexes to troubleshoot the issues they are facing at their location.

Being able to ingest data from all the tools and all the apps being used in the environment is valuable. Being able to create alerts when, for example, the CPU usage reaches 95% is also valuable. We can set up alerts and proactively fix the issues. Splunk helps with all these things, and Splunk Enterprise Security has almost 2,000 use cases. It follows MITRE ATT&CK and Cyber Kill Chain frameworks. There are certain notable events for which we can configure our security posture. We can onboard all the logs through indexes and create dashboards to view what is going on in the environment.

Overall, it is pretty good. They are improving it every day. They recently released SC4S for onboarding syslog data. However, the support and the pricing can be better.

It has been 8 years since I have been using Splunk. I am not a part of the core security team. I handle some parts of enterprise security, such as SIEM data models or the creation of some correlation searches and use cases. The majority of things, such as threat hunting or threat intelligence, are managed by our core security team.

We faced some issues, but we fixed them ourselves. We have around 10,000 knowledge objects running. All the knowledge objects should not be running all the time. They should be distributed over 24 hours so that the servers do not have any extra pressure at a particular time. We used to have an issue with our indexes going down. The CPU was being utilized 100%, and everything was getting stopped. We found the issue. We fixed that, and we are good now.

It is pretty easy to scale. For Splunk Cloud, we log a ticket with Splunk support, and they start the process. It does not take much time. However, there is a cost involved in that. 

We have been ingesting 40 TB a day. We have three locations: The USA, the UK, and France.

The SLA for Splunk Cloud support is not satisfactory for a customer. The turnaround time is a bit low. That should be fixed. I would rate their support a 9 out of 10.

Positive

I have not used any similar solution in my current organization.

In my previous organizations, I have used solutions such as Elk, IBM QRadar, and Microsoft Sentinel. Microsoft Sentinel is good. Splunk is better than QRadar. Splunk has a lot of capabilities. It makes it easier to do many things and do them correctly. It does not require as much effort as required in IBM QRadar and Microsoft Sentinel.

Splunk is a bit costly, but if we control our usage during our searches, its cost is okay. When not controlled, it becomes a bit costly.

To those evaluating Splunk and solutions, I would advise knowing the features they would be getting. Elk is open source, but there is an underlying cost of infrastructure. The cost almost becomes the same. You have to hire people who can work on Elk and then you have the underlying infrastructure cost.

We were on-premises, but we recently moved to Splunk Cloud. We have been using Victoria for the last eight months. When going from on-premises to Splunk Cloud, Splunk recommends engaging professional services. 

The migration was done by Splunk. For administration and maintenance, we have about eight people, but the number of users in the environment would be in the thousands.

The maintenance of Splunk Cloud is taken care of by Splunk. Customers do not manage the clusters. With the on-prem setup, we have to patch the servers, upgrade the servers, or restart them from time to time so that the rebalancing of the buckets happens properly. In Splunk Cloud, we do not have to do these things. We only take care of the data normalization part. All other things are managed by Splunk.

It does provide a return on investment.

It is a bit costly.

Be clear about what you want and try to filter out as much as possible. Create role-based rules and assign them to users rather than assigning every role capability to all the users. Also, everyone should not have access to all indexes. Only certain people should have access. For example, if someone is from the AD team, he or she should have access to the particular index logging the AD logs. They should not have access to all of it. There should also be some kind of training before you give access to people so that they know which searches to use and which ones not to use. They should understand the impact of various things.

I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security a 9 out of 10 based on my experience and the work that I do with the core security team. They are pretty satisfied with it.

The solution is used in my company to help the security operation center in work areas like detection, response, and investigation while maintaining cybersecurity standards.

My company has benefited from using Splunk Enterprise Security, which has helped us stay out of the headlines in newspapers. The tool helps detect threats early and respond to them effectively.

The solution's most valuable feature is that it helps with our use cases to detect anomalies in our data and it is important to my company since we have a lot of data on different logs on the systems. We need to be able to create insights that are indicative of malicious activities, which is one of the main purposes of having Splunk Enterprise Security in our company.

The product lacks cross-cutting capabilities. The features in Splunk Enterprise Security that were initially promised to our company are still not available. My company has been asking Splunk for some of these features to be provided in the product for years, and we have been promised that they will be introduced soon in the solution and be part of the product's next release.

I believe that the contract and the terms and conditions mentioned in it are areas where improvements are required.

I have experience with Splunk Enterprise Security.

When it comes to the on-premises version, the stability of the product was quite reliable. When my company moved to the product's cloud version, we faced some major issues related to availability and dealing with events like data corruption.

The product's scalability is okay. I do not think my company faced issues in the area of scalability.

The product's support services were not great initially, but now they are in really good shape. Whenever my company connects with the product's support team, they listen to our questions and queries, so I feel that we are in a much better place now. I rate the technical support as eight out of ten.

Positive

My company has experience with ArcSight. We switched to Splunk Enterprise Security because we couldn't get good answers to our questions from ArcSight, and it was just not functional.

The solution is deployed using the cloud services offered by Splunk. Recently, my company also deployed the tool on an on-premises model. In our company, we monitor both, cloud and on-premises, with our cloud instance.

In the beginning phase, I would describe the deployment experience as a costly and hard process. The migration process from on-premises to cloud was hard and took our company a year to complete. There were different kinds of roadblocks on our company's and Splunk's end. My company worked directly with the migration process associated with the product.

It is difficult to say whether I have seen an ROI since it is like trying to figure out how much an insurance policy works. I think that our company will receive a return on investment from the use of the solution since it helps the organization's cybersecurity team stay out of the newspapers. My company has always been able to deal with threats quickly with the product.

Regarding the product's pricing, I think it has always been difficult to have a conversation with Splunk. Considering the contract thing and the whole legal area, it takes forever to get the contracts signed and to be able to agree to the terms and conditions for my company as well as for Splunk's team. I like the direction Splunk stays in by thinking with the customers about how to reduce costs and only have that data searchable or available, which you need at a particular time. I like the path Splunk is going on, specifically its current trajectory. I appreciate the efforts put in by Splunk in the area partnership, which is what my company expects.

My company uses Microsoft Sentinel. A multi-SIEM environment provides my company with the best of both worlds. Sentinel has some good features, like Microsoft Graph Security, that the tool uses for the whole Microsoft ecosystem. Microsoft Sentinel is a good option for my organization.

In my company, Splunk acts as a product that complements Sentinel because the former lacks some features. I think Microsoft is strong in the area of service delivery. Microsoft's EDR tools, like Microsoft Defender, use Servers from Microsoft Graph Security, and my company benefits from such a type of integration, and we are able to send alerts to Splunk. In our company, if we start to ingest all the data we usually ingest in Splunk by moving to Sentinel, it will become too expensive, so we have to choose where to keep our data.

My company has been able to reduce the mean time to resolve with Splunk Enterprise Security as it went down from a couple of days to hours.

My company has seen a significant reduction in alert volume. It was very noisy earlier, but lately, my company hardly sees any false positives.

It is super important that the solution provides end-to-end visibility of our company's environment because you can never know from where threats can materialize. The fact that users can correlate and ingest data makes sense and is crucial, considering the massive amounts of data.

Splunk Enterprise Security has helped improve our company's ability to ingest and normalize data, which is one of the tool's key benefits.

I would not say that Splunk Enterprise Security has helped solve problems in real-time scenarios, but it has helped solve problems on a near real-time basis. In my company, there is always some lag between the data that comes in and the ones being ingested and correlated. Splunk Enterprise Security aids in solving problems in a matter of minutes.

Splunk Enterprise Security provides relevant context to help guide our company's investigations, and it is very important and can be considered everything for our organization. In our company, we pull in data from assets and registries to give index-based alerts and be able to find owners quickly to notify them and respond to threats.

Splunk Enterprise Security's ability to help our company find any security events across environments is excellent. My company is really happy with Splunk Enterprise Security. The product helps our company find bad stuff when needed.

The truth is that it is very hard to deliver solutions that work at a certain scale. I think that one of the things I could say is that it is a solution that scales up at work. There are many organizations where solutions fail, and I can say that since I have been a part of the deployment of many other tools, it is hard to get many products to work. Splunk Enterprise Security works, and our company's analysts rely on it and trust it. I can only see improvements considering the strategies in terms of where the product's management team is going, and I believe that I will be able to rate the tool a nine out of ten pretty soon.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

We use Splunk Enterprise Security for threat detection on our network devices.

Splunk Enterprise Security excels at threat detection. We've developed multiple correlation searches leveraging security data. These searches identify threats and categorize them by urgency level, enabling our security analysts to prioritize and take swift action.

Splunk Enterprise Security has helped us improve our incident response time. We achieve this by ensuring our queries are completed in near real-time.

Access management focuses on storing and managing access controls, while identity management deals with user identities. For example, if we want to find IP addresses associated with CrowdStrike, we can use access management to look up their IP ranges. Then, we can check if any IPs match by adding them to a specific identity management lookup. Finally, by leveraging the combined identity and access management features of Splunk Enterprise Security, we can create correlations between these entities.

The security dashboard can be customized to display the information we need most quickly. It typically has seven to eight panels, each dedicated to reflecting specific data. While some initial data load time might be present, clicking on a specific panel will display its information as soon as possible. There can be delays in traditional dashboards when searching for specific data. To optimize this, we can create "base searches" within each panel. These predefined searches cover commonly used queries and fields. Alternatively, we can create a "summary index" that holds a longer span of pre-processed data. This summary index allows even large datasets to be displayed quickly when accessed through the dashboard.

Splunk enhances our team collaboration regarding security incidents. When a threat alert is received, we can click on it and choose "investigation in progress" from a dropdown menu. This selection redirects us to a dedicated investigation page for further details. For in-depth analysis, we can drill down into the logs to pinpoint the source of the issue. Additionally, the platform allows us to contact network devices to determine the root cause. Once the issue is resolved, we can close the investigation.

We monitor both AWS and GCP environments using Splunk Enterprise Security. 

Splunk provides threat intelligence capabilities that can be valuable. This, combined with the comprehensive set of dashboards available, allows us to effectively monitor for threats. We can also create custom apps within Splunk for threat detection. These apps can include custom dashboards or reports that display specific information. For example, we could create a dashboard that shows the number of users accessing unknown URLs or another that monitors a particular device for suspicious activity. An example of suspicious activity might be a device where the print command is being executed repeatedly but failing each time. This could indicate a malfunction or, potentially, a malicious attempt to exploit the system. Similarly, a sudden spike in activity, such as millions of clicks on a specific device within a short timeframe, could also be a sign of a threat. By monitoring these parameters within Splunk's threat detection features, we can identify and investigate potential security incidents.

Splunk provides valuable visibility across multiple environments. Whether we have an on-premises or cloud architecture, Splunk offers self-monitoring capabilities. Additionally, depending on our environment, we can leverage existing monitoring tools. For on-premises deployments, we can utilize the Martin Console alongside Splunk for comprehensive monitoring. Cloud environments often come with built-in monitoring handled by the cloud provider's support team. In such cases, Splunk can focus on applications and custom log data for deeper insights.

The threat topology provided by Splunk gives us a comprehensive overview of potential threats. By analyzing queries or notable events, we can identify and neutralize these threats.

Splunk does a good job of analyzing malicious activities.

Splunk has improved our organization's decision-making by centralizing all the information in our environment and allowing us to access multiple dashboards and reports in one place.

Splunk has helped us reduce our alert volume. By using Splunk, we can identify the root causes of failures, which in turn leads to a decrease in alerts.

Splunk accelerates our security investigations by enabling us to resolve issues and document them in Standard Operating Procedures or knowledge-base articles. This facilitates a swifter response to similar incidents in the future.

Splunk Enterprise Security's dashboards are a key asset. They offer comprehensive visibility across our entire environment, allowing us to diagnose and address security issues directly from the interface.

I would like Splunk to offer a quicker and easier way to run queries.

Splunk could improve its cost-efficiency for our organization by offering pre-built architectures tailored to specific environments. This would provide a clearer picture of required licenses and their implementation, ultimately reducing licensing costs.

The presence of multiple layers creates a significant challenge for monitoring across cloud environments.

I am currently using Splunk Enterprise Security.

Splunk Enterprise Security is a very stable product, but there are occasional bugs that can appear.

We can scale Splunk Enterprise Security up or down depending on our demands.

The Splunk support team is helpful. For complex issues or on-demand requests, we raise cases with them. On-demand requests requiring impactful solutions are paid. However, for UK-based users, standard support is free and usually resolves issues efficiently. In some cases, the support team rushes to provide a solution without even looking at the issue.

Positive

The initial deployment can be complex. It involves creating multi-site clusters for each location and configuring a cluster master for each. This is because the cluster master will replicate data across multiple sites, making the environment more complex.

Four people were required for the deployment.

I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security 6 out of 10 because of the complexities that occur at times.

I highly recommend Splunk Enterprise Security for organizations seeking comprehensive security monitoring. Splunk offers a centralized platform to collect and analyze vast amounts of security data. This empowers us to gain full visibility across our entire IT environment, including applications, user activity, and potential security threats. Splunk provides insightful dashboards, reports, and real-time alerts to help proactively identify and address security issues.

While cost is a consideration, prioritizing features over functionalities for SIEM solutions can be risky. It's best to identify your business needs first and then choose an SIEM that offers the most relevant benefits to address those needs.

Splunk Enterprise Security is deployed across multiple locations and departments within our organization.

Splunk Enterprise Security required maintenance.

Splunk Enterprise Security offers a wide range of capabilities that benefit our organization. This includes user behavior analytics, which helps us identify suspicious activity. Additionally, Splunk Enterprise Security allows us to create custom alerts for various internal security needs.

Splunk has been instrumental in improving our incident response time, especially for user authentication issues. It excels at detecting anomalous behavior, such as brute force attacks or multiple login attempts from a single source. This allows us to quickly identify and address potential security threats, making Splunk a vital tool for our cybersecurity incident response efforts.

The asset and identity management feature strengthens our overall security posture. This system relies on the creation of security roles by administrators. These roles then determine access permissions based on the principle of Role-Based Access Control. In this way, access is carefully controlled and assigned based on specific job duties. It's important to note that administrators retain a high level of access and make final decisions regarding access permissions.

Splunk offers a variety of dashboards, including real-time dashboards that update continuously. These dashboards complement Splunk's real-time alerts by providing a visual overview of our system's health. They can be built to leverage different Splunk resources, like indexes, search clusters, and host clusters. This allows us to monitor key metrics and identify potential issues in real-time, helping us maintain a healthy and efficient system.

Our SoC and Analytics teams use Splunk to monitor multiple cloud environments.

The visibility into multiple environments is good.

The insider threat detection is valuable for our organization because it helps us identify unknown threats. While we leverage existing threat intelligence for known threats through signatures and endpoint protection tools, these methods have limitations. Since they rely on predefined information, they can't be readily integrated with Splunk to monitor for and generate alerts based on these known threats. Splunk's strength lies in its ability to detect anomalies and suspicious user behavior, which can be crucial for uncovering insider threats that might bypass traditional signature-based defenses.

Splunk Enterprise Security excels at analyzing malicious activity. Our team has created several use cases to identify such activity. These use cases focus on data patterns that might indicate malicious intent, such as a sudden increase in login attempts or logins occurring outside of regular business hours. Additionally, we can identify brute force attacks attempting to crack passwords through repeated login attempts. This allows us to effectively monitor for and respond to potential security threats.

It has improved our detection ability and has helped reduce our alert volume to a manageable level.

Splunk has helped speed up our security investigation.

Splunk stands out for its extensive application integrations. It boasts a user-friendly interface with intuitive features that are easy to understand and navigate for technical users. This accessibility is a major reason why I find Splunk so appealing.

The user interface is not user-friendly for non-technical users. 

I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for three and a half years.

Splunk Enterprise Security is extremely stable.

Splunk Enterprise Security is easily scalable.

We have only had minimal contact with Splunk technical support.

Neutral

The initial deployment is straightforward.

Splunk Enterprise Security is affordable.

While affordability is important, I recommend Splunk Enterprise Security over the cheapest option on the market. This is because Splunk offers a robust feature set that justifies its cost.

I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security nine out of ten.

We have Splunk Enterprise Security deployed across multiple locations.

Splunk Enterprise Security requires minimal maintenance.

I recommend Splunk Enterprise Security as a scalable and reliable solution for both on-premises and cloud environments. 

We use Splunk Enterprise Security for 24-hour monitoring and security log checks.

It is easy to monitor multiple cloud environments with Splunk Enterprise Security. The visibility into multi-cloud environments is good.

We have some open-source tools integrated with Splunk that help with threat intelligence.

Even though we already have several SIEM solutions in place, their similarities make adopting Splunk Enterprise Security a breeze.

Splunk Enterprise Security helps speed up our investigations.

Splunk Enterprise Security is complicated in terms of developing specific cybersecurity use cases.

Our alert volume is still high and we are working on reducing those.

I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for six months.

Splunk Enterprise Security is stable.

The technical support was responsive and knowledgeable.

Neutral

Compared to Sumo Logic which is organized, Splunk Enterprise Security is complicated.

While the deployment was straightforward, it took a few months to complete because we had to make customizations to fit our specific environment.

Splunk is priced similarly to other SIEM solutions.

We evaluated several solutions and selected Splunk due to the functionality and cost. 

I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security seven out of ten.

We're currently integrating our log sources with Splunk. Once logs are flowing, we'll deploy security monitoring use cases with alerts. We'll then explore Splunk's further capabilities.

We use Splunk daily to find the root cause of attacks and analyze users attempting to access our system. We create incidents and address 5 to 7 simultaneously. Once we analyze and record the activity, we can delete the incident. Our admin team will verify whether it originated externally or internally. 

We use Splunk to respond to security incidents and for data analytics. We conduct custom correlations for the customer and write reports on any attacks. We set alerts for user behavior to discover threats, like if someone is constantly attempting to access our internal domain. The admin will identify that threat and block it. 

Splunk helps us be more proactive. We can take predictive action to identify and block threats so that nothing harmful gets into the system. With Splunk, we can monitor the entire environment from one place. It's a single point of control for all infrastructure, whether in the cloud or on-premise. Splunk has sped up our security investigations. 

I like Splunk's Notable Events. We have created several dashboards for our customers, where you can see the activity and number of alerts. The database receives data about the mask and domain IPs of any user trying to gain access.  We ingest logs from multiple antivirus products and firewalls and analyze them to prevent attacks and threat activities.

Splunk could have more built-in use case presets that customers can build on and customize. 

I have used Splunk for 9 years. 

Splunk is a stable product.

I rate Splunk technical support 8 out of 10. 

Positive

We previously used Dynatrace but switched to Splunk because it has more features. 

Splunk is easy to deploy if you have some basic knowledge. You need experience. It doesn't require any maintenance after deployment. 

Splunk is a good value for the features it provides. The license is costly, but it's better than the other tools. 

I rate Splunk Enterprise Security 8 out of 10. I would recommend Splunk to others. It's one of the most powerful tools available. It's a valuable tool for monitoring infrastructure. 

We use Splunk Enterprise Security for security correlation and event management.

Splunk Enterprise Security is deployed as a hybrid model where the core component is on the cloud and is integrated with an on-premises solution.

Splunk Enterprise Security offers strong visibility through readily available use cases and supports integrations with most standard log sources. Its search capabilities are also commendable. Compared to other tools, Splunk Enterprise Security delivers superior visibility.

While we haven't integrated UEBA yet, it's in our plans. As a proactive monitoring solution, UEBA offers several benefits. It can identify Indicators of Compromise based on historical threat intelligence and generate alerts for suspicious activities. This allows us to potentially detect compromised accounts or ongoing attacks before they cause significant damage.

Splunk offers its threat intelligence service, which helps prevent IP replication and malicious threats. This information can be integrated or configured for our specific use cases, delivering more relevant and high-value insights.

Threat topology and MITRE ATT&CK are frameworks used to understand and analyze attack patterns and techniques, which can then be used to formulate and refine IOCs.

Splunk Enterprise Security's effectiveness in analyzing malicious activities or detecting breaches depends heavily on its configuration and correlation settings. Therefore, it's impossible to definitively label any tool as inherently good or bad. Ultimately, its success hinges on the organization's implementation. This includes onboarding the tool with the appropriate block sources for security detection, employing a sound risk assessment methodology, and aligning the tool's capabilities with both business and security use cases. When configured correctly, Splunk Enterprise Security can undoubtedly contribute to improvements in MTTD and MTDL.

Splunk Enterprise Security helps us detect threats faster. It allows us to define use cases, integrate with multiple threat feeds, and even connect to vulnerability solutions. In essence, by configuring all relevant log sources and defining appropriate use cases, we can achieve the primary objective of any SIEM solution: reducing mean time to protection.

Splunk Enterprise Security has reduced our investigative time by 25 percent by consolidating all logs into a central console. This eliminates the need to log into individual tools for log retrieval.

Splunk Enterprise Security helps reduce the number of false positive alerts.

In terms of monitoring capabilities, Splunk Enterprise Security performs adequately. However, its user interface requires training for efficient use. Compared to competitors like IBM QRadar, McAfee Nitro, and RSA Security Analytics, Splunk has a steeper learning curve, making it feel less user-friendly.

I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for almost four months.

We use a licensed third-party Splunk partner for support, and I haven't heard of any issues so far.

Compared to IBM QRadar, Splunk Enterprise Security offers faster alert resolution. Its superior indexing and searching capabilities deliver quicker query results. While QRadar boasts a more user-friendly interface, Splunk provides numerous pre-built use cases that effectively reduce false positives and feature comprehensive application dashboards.

For instance, I encountered a use case unavailable in QRadar which appears to utilize the Cyber Kill Chain framework. MITRE ATT&CK enjoys wider adoption, and Splunk leverages this framework whereas QRadar persists with the Cyber Kill Chain. Additionally, Splunk integrates with a third-party app exchange, offering functionalities like vulnerability dashboards, threat intelligence, correlation dashboards, and EPS dashboards. This extensive library of applications caters to diverse business use cases. Users can install these applications as needed, making Splunk a highly customizable and feature-rich solution. Although undeniably expensive, its capabilities justify the cost.

While Splunk is a powerful enterprise tool, I'm new to it myself. I've heard Splunk is often preferred over other options, but the cost can be prohibitive for smaller organizations.

There are cheaper SIEMs available, but they require much more manual configuration, typically by developers with scripting knowledge. Splunk does not require this manual configuration, and its parsing, indexing, and visibility are superior.

Based on the limited time I have been using the solution and the feedback I have received from other users, I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security a six out of ten.

Without a SIEM solution, we rely on individual point solution consoles. For example, logging into a firewall reveals only local logs. Imagine the firewall detects suspicious IPs generating unusual traffic. Confirming this as a true or false positive is difficult solely based on firewall rules. Conversely, a SIEM offers multiple options for correlation. Say the firewall denies traffic, and threat intelligence identifies the source IP as malicious. Additionally, web server logs might show suspicious activity or bad actors attempting an attack. With multiple logs and threat indicators, the chance of false positives drops significantly. Correlation enables confirmation of genuine traffic versus malicious activity. Without a SIEM, pinpointing true attacks from false positives becomes challenging.

We have integrated different tools to get files from various types of endpoints. We also have Check Point. There are a few Windows use cases for brute force and code block attacks, and we use Splunk to detect when a user is logging in from another country where we don't do business. Splunk is integrated with our AWS environment, so we ingest logs from Amazon CloudTrail, GuardDuty, and other solutions. 

Without Splunk Enterprise Security, it would be difficult for us to manage and prioritize alerts. There's a potential to lose track of important notifications, and it's essential to our security that we do not miss anything. Splunk has improved our investigations because the reporting and dashboarding make things so much easier.  We can provide weekly or monthly reports. I also like Splunk's ability to integrate. 

We can fine-tune our alerts to reduce false positives or low-priority alerts. It reduces the time our admins spend on responding to alerts by one or two hours weekly. We can alter the policies, do geoblocking, and add certain applications and IPs to our allowed list. 

Splunk covers our cloud and on-prem environments. We were exclusively on-prem, but we are slowly moving into the cloud. Our developers can customize investigations by adding multiple interesting fields and aggregate those details in Enterprise Security by using the appropriate SQL queries.

We use Splunk's threat intelligence management feature, which provides insight into how business decisions can make an organization vulnerable to cyber attacks. All of these things fall under tactical threat intelligence. For example, it can tell us if someone is accessing our organization's API. 

We have integrated all our tools so that we can monitor any alert type, but we use Splunk primarily for investigations. We're ingesting audit, security, application, and Windows logs. Once we get an alert, we go to the tool and investigate further

Splunk uses the MITRE ATT&CK framework, giving us new tactics and techniques based on issues observed in other businesses and industries and helping us to address novel threats to our network. MITRE ATT&CK is highly useful. 

It's a little difficult to archive data in Splunk for longer than six to eight months. Integration is more challenging compared to other tools we've used, such as LogRhythm. 

Integrating tools and creating use cases could be easier. It's hard for a junior security engineer with only a couple of years of experience to write use cases. They can do it, but it's much easier in a solution like IBM QRadar. Setting conditions is like a multiple-choice type of thing. It's a more user-friendly process. 

We have used Splunk Enterprise Security for nearly a year. 

I rate Enterprise Security nine out of 10 for stability. Splunk is solidly stable. We've rarely experienced a crash requiring us to rebuild cases. 

Our organization has around 1,000-1,500 groups, and Splunk works fine for us. 

I rate Splunk support nine out of 10. Their support team is excellent. We schedule calls with them when we have issues. They typically rectify any problems in eight to 12 hours. At most, it will take a week to fix an issue. 

Positive

I have worked with LogRhythm, and I think Splunk's interface is much better. It's more attractive and has a more interesting feel, so I think it makes things easy for our analysts.

I rate Splunk Enterprise Security eight out of 10. Splunk is useful for compiling all types of logs for investigation and monitoring purposes. I can recommend Splunk for people if they are comfortable with the deployment and integration. While integration is easier with solutions like QRadar or LogRhythm, Splunk is better for everything else.