I work for a government agency and we use Splunk to monitor our Cisco equipment. I'm a senior network engineer and we are customers of Splunk.
Senior Network Engineer at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
Capable and flexible; you can use it to gather syslog messages from any type of system.
Pros and Cons
- "You can use it to gather syslog messages from anything."
- "It would be nice if they had a wizard to construct searches, including more complex searches that include math or statistics."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
This is a very capable and flexible solution. It's based on Linux and even Windows installations use the Linux file structure. You can use it to gather syslog messages from anything; jet engines, fin-tech financial institutions, banking, regular enterprise, etc. You can gather the messages from network equipment, elevators, anything you can think of that generates syslog, and Splunk it. They also have a good API so you can write your own code to talk to it or interact with it. The solution has a lot of applications that people have written. It's the best solution on the market.
What needs improvement?
It would be nice if they had a wizard to construct searches, including more complex searches that include math or statistics.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for 10 years.
Buyer's Guide
Splunk Enterprise Security
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Splunk Enterprise Security. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product runs on Linux so it's very stable. It's important to have a well-run SAN environment to store the data.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution can be scaled up to any size of enterprise or agency. I have heard of Splunk installations of over 100 terabytes of licensing.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Logrhythm previously but it was not a good fit for our environment. That is why we switched to Splunk.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is fairly complex. There's a certain architecture that Splunk utilizes to handle its indexing and it also depends on the size of your deployment. If you have a relatively low amount of gigabytes per day, deployment is simple. And of course it scales to terabyte, so if you have a terabytes installation, there are a lot of additional services that need to be implemented such as licensing servers and clustering. We sometimes configure syslog NG servers to front end the date before it ends up at an indexer. If it's a large terabyte installation, you definitely want to use professional services.
What about the implementation team?
This was implemented through a combination of in house and vendor developers.
What was our ROI?
n/a
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Splunk charges on the basis of gigabytes of incoming log messages per day. Also I would recommend that funds be set aside for Splunk training and certification.
What other advice do I have?
There is a large number of options for training and certification. The more training you have the more useful Splunk becomes. However, right out the gate you can do useful searches due to the search bar design.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Information Technology Specialist at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Provides information about what's going on in a simplified way
Pros and Cons
- "From my experience, the visual aid that it provides is most valuable. There are charts and other means to provide information."
- "Its user interface for everything other than the charts can be improved. Some parts of it can be simplified a bit, such as when importing documents that have the network traffic. When you're going through the information about the network traffic, you have to have the expertise, but even if a program is supposed to be for IT support, it is good to make it user-friendly because it gets easier to train people. When something goes wrong, the more difficult a program is in terms of UI, the harder it is to fix the issue."
What is our primary use case?
I went to a cybersecurity boot camp through Penn University, and we went over this topic for a decent amount of time. It was more of a testing environment where they gave us different file formats that we had to go through. We would upload those files to Splunk, and it would give us good examples of what it would look like under different circumstances, such as when an organization is getting hacked, when there is a DDOS attack, and so on.
How has it helped my organization?
It is a good way of seeing the network traffic as a whole. With network traffic, there are a lot of things going on, especially in a big organization. It organizes the information and makes it more usable for average people. If you use Wireshark, you'll get a ton of information, and it is super easy to get lost in it. Even if you put Wireshark on for about 30 minutes, you can very easily get lost. Splunk simplifies the information, and it gives you charts and different means of seeing that information, making it easily understandable for people.
What is most valuable?
From my experience, the visual aid that it provides is most valuable. There are charts and other means to provide information.
What needs improvement?
Its user interface for everything other than the charts can be improved. Some parts of it can be simplified a bit, such as when importing documents that have the network traffic. When you're going through the information about the network traffic, you have to have the expertise, but even if a program is supposed to be for IT support, it is good to make it user-friendly because it gets easier to train people. When something goes wrong, the more difficult a program is in terms of UI, the harder it is to fix the issue.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for a little while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of stability, I really liked it. I didn't see any issues as far as stability was concerned. Whenever I needed it, it was there. It was available, and it worked. It was pretty good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Its scalability seems pretty good. If you are working with a lot of information, it would be usable.
Its users would depend on the organization. Mostly network engineers, network analysts, and SOC analysts would be dealing with this.
How are customer service and support?
There were instructors who knew how to fix a lot of the issues. If there was an overarching issue, they would deal with it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
At the boot camp, we also used Kibana, which looked a little bit more friendly, but when we got into the details, I liked Splunk a little bit more. It was more intuitive, and it did a little bit more on its own rather than Kibana. With Kibana, it felt like I had to hold its hand all the way through the whole process. There were 20 people, and I know a number of people were leaning towards Kibana. It just came down to personal preference.
How was the initial setup?
We saw some of the basics for deploying it within an environment, but it was very minimal.
It isn't complex, but there is a little bit of a learning curve. Once you get the hang of it, it is very easy to get in and do things, but there is definitely a learning curve. I am not speaking just for myself; other 20 or more students that were in that class at the time also had a difficult time getting the hang of it, but once you get the hang of it, it is smooth sailing. You can fly through the program. Making it a little bit more simplified would help.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I remember Splunk being relatively affordable. Kibana was more reasonable, but you get more with Splunk. If I was suggesting something, I would probably suggest Splunk because it is better to pay a little bit more and get a lot more.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise making sure that your staff is very aware of how the program works. After one or two classes, I got the hang of it, and it felt like I knew everything that was there to know about it, but when we went into the next class, I realized that there is a lot more. So, if you are going to use the program, I would advise making sure that everyone is trained and everyone really understands it. You should take your time to go into the nitty-gritty. You can very easily think that you know everything, but when you make mistakes in Splunk, at least from my experience, it can get messy quickly. So, you want to make sure that everyone has a very good understanding of what they're doing so that you can keep everything organized and accurate.
I would rate it an eight out of 10. When we're getting into the nuts and bolts and looking at the data, it is an eight, but when we are just navigating through the website, it is a seven. Only its UI needs improvement. It isn't bad, but there is room for improvement. They should make it a little bit more user-friendly.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Splunk Enterprise Security
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Splunk Enterprise Security. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Data Analyst
Offers integration with other risk-based solutions
Pros and Cons
- "If properly built, I'm very impressed with the stability of Splunk ES."
- "In terms of training. I find that some things about Splunk aren't well-explained. I see features and then go to the website but don't find good explanations."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case is computer network defense.
How has it helped my organization?
It is very important that Splunk ES provides end-to-end visibility in our environment. Part of the solution is bringing the user closer to the resolution.
The integration with other risk-based solutions, such as the risk matrix applications included with Splunk, is helpful. It helps us identify the risks without having to delve into other resources.
Splunk helped improve our company's ability to ingest and normalize data. That's the primary use of Splunk Enterprise or Core. For ingestion, we've been using Splunk Enterprise for about six or seven years before we had ES. So, that was the primary reason we got it.
In terms of the risk-based part, Splunk improved our ability to ingest and normalize data. Initially, we used Splunk Enterprise Core for aggregation and correlation. We didn't have the risk-based reporting.
I'm very impressed with Splunk's ability to identify and solve problems in real time. And I look forward to the new version improving the product.
We've been able to discover things we didn't see before. So, there's more that we discover now.
Splunk ES provides us with the relevant context to help guide our investigation. It goes back to the time to resolution. We have to do much less investigation because it's already built-in alerting.
What is most valuable?
Risk-based reporting and anomaly detection are valuable features.
The biggest advantage is the reduced time to resolution. Before, it took us up to days to resolve issues, and with Splunk, we've been able to move that down to hours or even minutes in some cases.
What needs improvement?
I was just at the conference, and they spoke about and demoed a new version of Splunk. It looked like some pain points are resolved in the new solution, such as not having to go to so many different panels. Like to streamline or improve the UI.
In terms of training. I find that some things about Splunk aren't well-explained. I see features and then go to the website but don't find good explanations. However, I can always call support and get help.
For how long have I used the solution?
We purchased ES four years ago.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
If properly built, I'm very impressed with the stability of Splunk ES. We initially stood it up on a single server, and to make it more robust, we had to break out of that single server concept to make it more resilient.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is very good. That comes from our experience of having to scale out, and Splunk's documentation on scaling up is very good.
How are customer service and support?
Every time we've used Splunk support, it's been very good. We don't have any in-house Splunk engineers, but headquarters has some they can send to assist us, so I can call on them. It's a very good support chain.
If there is some room for improvement, it is in terms of training. I find that some things about Splunk aren't well-explained. I see features and then go to the website but don't find good explanations. However, I can always call support and get help.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
My company is very impressed with Splunk. We've used several SIEMs before, and Splunk has been the most efficient one.
There was one called Intelotactic, and another was called Secureworks. I believe both of those are gone now.
Initially, with Splunk, we had a steep learning curve. It went from a fairly low ingestion point to figuring out how much data we needed to get to a certain level. Even when we got to a level we were happy with; we found that we were ingesting a lot of noise in the data. We had to figure out ways to reduce that noise.
How was the initial setup?
We bought the maintenance along with Splunk ES and used Splunk engineers to assist us in the setup. It was a very good process. It worked out very well for us.
The knowledge of the individual sent to us was impressive.
Deployment model: Ours is all on-prem currently, but we are headed towards a cloud solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Jul 9, 2024
Flag as inappropriatePrinciple Security Engineer at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
Provides end-to-end visibility, improved resilience, and saves time
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Splunk Enterprise Security is the threat intelligence integration because essentially having to go out and correlate all the data on our own becomes convoluted."
- "For us, the area that Splunk Enterprise Security can improve is performance optimization."
What is our primary use case?
We use Splunk Enterprise Security to ensure the security of our endpoints, including corporate workstations, tracking proxy logs, and all of the other benefits that Splunk Enterprise Security brings, including observability and visibility into the environment.
We run Splunk Enterprise Security on a single search head, and it talks to about nine separate clusters. It's a hybrid environment of on-prem and AWS. Ideally, we will migrate that to a search head cluster for Enterprise Security for high availability. Then, in the upgrade process, we generally have about two hours of downtime when we upgrade Enterprise Security. Ideally, moving to the cluster environment will allow us to mitigate that entirely. So, we did some assessments earlier in the year. We've gotta do some finalized testing, but we're hoping that will eliminate almost the entire two hours of downtime for our customers when upgrading. Then, it's two hours from start to finish to get the search head back up, and that does not include backfill time or anything like that. It could be a good full workday. So getting that workday back is going to be very important for us, and that's where I think we're gonna end up evolving for the Enterprise Security environment.
How has it helped my organization?
One benefit we have seen using Splunk Enterprise Security is keeping it all integrated, so no jumping between tools during investigations is the biggest benefit from the analyst's perspective. When we're setting up an investigation, it allows them to use one tool versus having to compartmentalize all the tools together, link it together, document it, and ultimately end up in one spot. Using Enterprise Security as it allows for integrated tracking for the investigations.
It's very important that Splunk Enterprise Security provides end-to-end visibility into our environment because not seeing something is a potential risk to the business. Having that visibility also assures the business, all the way up to the C Suite level, that there is coverage. And if not, we at least have that identified as an uncovered portion.
As long as we can point the data into Splunk Enterprise Security, it is easy to identify security events across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments. Getting it into Splunk is typically the challenge because it needs to be in a usable format. So once I've got it properly shaped and tagged, the rest trickles down. Generally, there are a lot of good TAs for getting data into Splunk around the cloud providers. So we don't have to customize it as much. It's just about getting it implemented, going through the checklist, and doing our due diligence to make sure we have the coverage we need. We will see events as long as they're flowing into Splunk. Once it gets into the data models in Enterprise Security, it will show up.
As far as ingesting data, Splunk Enterprise Security specifically hasn't helped. We shape and normalize our data to meet Enterprise Security's needs. So, we did that as a preemptive during our initial assessment. What does it come in as? What do we want it to look like? How can Enterprise Security more optimally use it? Will it hit the data models? Will it show up? Things like that. So, a lot of that is already there before Enterprise Security, but then using the data is where Enterprise Security shines. It makes the data more usable across all data sources. We don't have to know what to look for in each data type. We could go to the data model and view it.
We've increased our alert volume a little bit, not in a bad way, but getting new detections. The risk-based alerting has decreased. So what is happening elsewhere in the environment correlates with that event, and those risks are bubbling up to the top, whereas somebody getting locked out isn't as important as an account takeover. It's hard to portray that image with one event, but a series of events on the timeline makes it a little easier.
Splunk Enterprise Security lets us know who owns what hardware, who should access it, and who shouldn't, more specifically, during an investigation or escalation path. So we know there's a problem. Who do we talk to next to start that process and up the chain? We have a lot of that in there as well, which helps.
Splunk Enterprise Security has generally helped reduce our meantime to resolve. How much is hard to say because it depends on the investigation's scope and scale. It does help the analysts get a clearer picture of what's happening everywhere in the environment.
Enterprise Security will automatically correlate those events for us. When an analyst gets assigned to that investigation, it becomes looking at the picture and putting the puzzle together versus having to go through a threat hunt or find those indicators and then identify the account lockouts and takeovers. It's already in one pane of glass, and then that gets us to the meantime to resolution quicker.
It has decreased our mean time to detection, especially for the high critical alerts. When we leverage that risk-based alerting, we can say, alright, multiple events have now happened to propagate this into a larger event instead of trying to correlate that as an individual or a team of analysts. Ad hoc is going to always be slower than automatic. Doing it in the back end means my analysts get there and get the job done quicker.
Splunk Enterprise Security has helped with our organization's resilience. We generally use observability metrics to determine the state of the hardware and the status of the environment at the time, so that has been a good point. It's definitely made us more resilient to figure out what happened post-incident and on what time scale and then go back and try to either remediate or mitigate that wherever possible. The historical context is just as valuable as their live real-time learning context.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Splunk Enterprise Security is the threat intelligence integration because essentially having to go out and correlate all the data on our own becomes convoluted. We don't have the resources, so having that included in the product makes it easier for us.
What needs improvement?
For us, the area that Splunk Enterprise Security can improve is performance optimization. Enterprise Security is so critical that right now, we're working on getting it to a clustered state to have high availability. The challenge there is hardware procurement and utilization. It's very resource-intensive. A type of performance optimization would generally be a huge improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Splunk Enterprise Security seems stable to me. I haven't seen many issues, so I'm looking to try and test the latest version.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is a mixed bag. So, when we first started Enterprise Security, they told us not to cluster it. Now they're recommending we cluster it. We haven't gone down that road yet. I am looking forward to it. But if they say it can scale, they have customers that have done it. We gotta go through the growing pains of implementing it, rolling it out, and making sure it's ready to go. I think it's possible, but I have no formal experience yet. I am looking forward to it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We started in Splunk, used it historically, and saw the product's value. It becomes the other data that would not be allowed for business reasons. How can we leverage that to provide value for the business? I know a lot about searchability this year, such as trace logs and metrics. These are generally good, but some trace stacks can be a lot of ingestion against our license. If we could put that in somewhere, that would not be as cost-effective, ideally. The trade-off is performance. Splunk is very performant. It does its job well. It's just a little pricey for the non-business critical logs.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is generally good. We must stand up the search heads, get them ready, tie them into the index clusters, and then deploy. Generally, we don't expose anything to the customers until it's production-ready. So deploying it was just getting it out there and built, doing some finalized testing to make sure it's ready to be used by the end customer.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented Splunk Enterprise Security ourselves. Through Splunk, we've engaged some professional services to ensure that our plan of attack is moving in the right direction. Professional services have also provided a lot of guidance.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investment with Splunk Enterprise Security. Getting that holistic view. Splunk gives us a better picture of what's going on in our environment. Without it, we would have to go hunt for it. It's like Google searching for logs. It's easy, and everybody uses Google. So it's time-tested in the market. It's just about how much data we can get in, how we're storing it, retention, pulling it back, and what goes with that associated.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
While Splunk offers generous developer licenses and obtaining annual licenses is straightforward, the cost is a major consideration. As open-source competitors become more sophisticated, Splunk will need to address this pricing issue in the future.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have not used other SIEM tools in the past, but we are evaluating other tools. We don't want to migrate away from Splunk. We want to replicate it at a larger scale for non-security-based data, such as application and developer data. Anything they want to throw in and search is fine. But at Splunk's current cost, it is generally very expensive to do non-business-critical logs in that environment.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security eight out of ten. Things that could be better would be further integrations into other security tools. I know a series of threat intelligence feeds can be integrated, and I'm sure they are slated. It's just a matter of getting the resources to integrate them. Splunk Enterprise Security is a solid product. I run it in my home lab as well. It's generally one of the better Splunk apps.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Jul 9, 2024
Flag as inappropriateSplunk engineer at MindPoint Group, LLC
Great risk-based alerting, clear dashboards, and decreases false positives
Pros and Cons
- "The risk-based alerting is excellent."
- "The Splunk platform is not unified. We have all of these different tools and they feel a bit disjointed."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case is for failed login attempts. I typically stick to the security use cases.
How has it helped my organization?
The risk-based alerting helped to decrease false positives. We would just get a bunch of email alerts every time a threshold was reached previously and we'd have to investigate them. We'd have to deal with alert fatigue, the standard scenario where no one believes in the alerts anymore. So risk-based alerting has helped us tune out some of the noisier issues and then tune into the alerts, endpoints, and users that are problematic.
What is most valuable?
The risk-based alerting is excellent. It was most helpful in decreasing the amount of false positives that help bubble up the most problematic users and assets for the analysts, and it's fairly easy to implement.
Splunk Enterprise Security provides end-to-end visibility into our environment. It's a ten out of ten for that capability. Everyone wants to know what's happening across their environment. The more difficult part is defining the visibility, as we can't we can't ingest the entire company into Splunk. So, the harder part is not necessarily gaining visibility. It's rather determining what visibility looks like. Oftentimes, it comes down to determining and prioritizing using the highest value.
Splunk Enterprise Security, when set up properly, helps us find any security events across multi-cloud, on-premises, or hybrid environments. It helps with investigations and helps us find that needle in a haystack.
While it doesn't necessarily help with data normalization, some pieces determine whether the data is usable and create that usability outside of enterprise security. It does assist in the process.
Splunk Enterprise Security provides us with relevant context to help guide our investigations. The context helps with risk-based learning, which is one of the things I rely on fairly heavily. It also helps reduce false positives and increases visibility to the most problematic endpoints and end users.
The Splunk Enterprise Security Hub has reduced our mean time to resolve; however, how much is hard to quantify. The dashboard is color-coded, and it's easy to read for the analysts. I don't often have to explain anything to them. Red is bad, green is good. The dashboards are relatively self-explanatory and it helps reveal the most difficult, problematic parts.
The solution does help with resilience - a bit. What it does is help us discover problems and reactively fix them.
What needs improvement?
I've definitely seen improvement. However, assets and identity are probably some of the most important integrations for risk-based learning. So if there was a way to make it easier - and, again, I know there's been significant improvement - that is one of the more annoying friction points when setting up risk based alerting.
The Splunk platform is not unified. We have all of these different tools and they feel a bit disjointed.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for maybe six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a complex tool. Everything needs to be done proactively. That said, it's relatively stable. There's a lot of stability built in, and I don't have any problems with it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I've worked in on-premises environments as large as 300 terabytes, and they return data very quickly. When it's done right, it can scale tremendously.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and technical support can be hit or miss. Sometimes you get someone that is really good and knows their stuff and is really helpful. Sometimes you are trying to be patient and help them through. That's hard when you have someone breathing down your neck to get things fixed. They're nice. However, sometimes, when I have pressure on my end, I don't need someone who is nice - I need someone who knows how to fix my issue
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
I'm usually the one performing the setup work. I've been working with Splunk for a long time; it's relatively easy for me.
Enterprise Security is a beast. The best practice is to put it on its own search head. When setting it up, I'm asking for not only an additional light license for Enterprise Security. I have to ask for another server on top of it, too. It is quite a difficult task to ask when Splunk is already as expensive as it is. Then, there is technically setting it up and configuring it. It does take time to configure and normalize all the very foundational parts, such as the assets on identities, which is absolutely integral to getting security working. While I enjoyed the process, it took a lot of work.
What about the implementation team?
I am a consultant and do assist with the setup.
What was our ROI?
My work typically has to do with improving the quality of alerts or content and normalizing data. I don't usually get to the point where I'd be able to measure ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not the person that deals with pricing. I have heard there is sticker shock.
What other advice do I have?
I'd give the solution an eight out of ten. There are a lot of great features. They're constantly increasing the value of Enterprise Security. However, they're leaving behind many smaller clients that don't have the knowledge or expertise and don't have professional services, which is another large expense. A lot of smaller clients just don't have the ability to set it up properly, and when that happens, they're only leveraging 30% to 40% of its capabilities. They're upset and wonder why this very expensive tool is not working for them. That said, when it works, it works great.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Consultant
Last updated: Jul 9, 2024
Flag as inappropriateEngineer in Training at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
It's really good at consolidating a lot of data from different sources and generating summaries
Pros and Cons
- "It has been really good at consolidating a lot of data from different sources. It's really good at generating summaries."
- "It would be nice if Splunk provided a little more documentation and instructions on how to upload. The steps are short, but sometimes it's not so intuitive."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is mostly for monitoring security events. We have different endpoints, like router switches. It collects a lot of data and we create reports.
We also use Enterprise Security to send alerts out. I'm still relatively new. I mostly work for the SPL side of things.
How has it helped my organization?
It has been really good at consolidating a lot of data from different sources. It's really good at generating summaries.
It's exciting to hear that SPL2 is rolling out. We look forward to using that more, especially for the data ingestion part of things.
What is most valuable?
In the context of apps, we use a lot of search and reporting. We create many searches and reports, that quickly summarize a lot of information. That's the part that I mostly look into. That has been very valuable. I also like the dashboards and visualization features.
Its ability to provide end-to-end visibility into our environment is important. It helps a lot, especially when other users or stakeholders want that information. So being a little more transparent, but being mindful of the compliance and rules associated with that. It makes it really easy to communicate with people. They want statistics fast. The ability to quickly pull it out without a hassle is very valuable.
We use Splunk to try to reduce the number of random alerts sent out. We're trying to consolidate a lot of functions. That has been very valuable and helpful for us.
The logging system has been a great help to us. Sometimes when we try to integrate some functions, we're not sure what errors happened. We look into the logging system, and it provides so much information.
These optimization examples have reduced the meantime to resolve. It has been reducing cutting time.
It definitely helps our business resiliency a lot. We have a specialized cybersecurity office and on-prem technology and they really like to use Splunk. It has been addressing a lot of concerns and it is able to output the data that people are looking for. It's able to predict and identify a lot of functions.
Splunk Enterprise Security has been a great help to us in consolidating our tools. It's definitely been pulling a lot of data, especially from the network side of things. We look at it for baseline security tests. Splunk has a lot of apps and add-ons that we have been using Enterprise Security for.
What needs improvement?
I currently use Splunkbase and some of the add-ons. Integrating into our apps has been very straightforward. It would be nice if Splunk provided a little more documentation and instructions on how to upload. The steps are short, but sometimes it's not so intuitive. It would be nice if there were more user-friendly help guides.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has been very reliable. We haven't encountered downtime that I know of.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Splunk works with companies that are a lot bigger than us. We're medium-sized. I have faith that we can scale.
How are customer service and support?
For technical support, I look at the online community, which has been a great help. I haven't used Splunk support directly.
The forum is easy to use. I would rate it a nine out of ten. Sometimes the response time is slow.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Splunk Enterprise positively. I hear from coworkers that there could be tweaks. I would give it an eight out of ten.
In the SPL default, everything's crunched together. The formatting could be neater. When I write it in the search head, it has a lot of information in one small area. It could have a friendlier user interface.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Jul 9, 2024
Flag as inappropriateSplunk developer at Maveric Systems Limited
Helps us monitor multiple cloud environments, offers strong capabilities for detecting insider threats, and reduces our alert volume
Pros and Cons
- "Splunk Enterprise Security is a valuable tool that allows us to monitor data from the APS daily."
- "When files are absent, troubleshooting becomes difficult, and performance issues inevitably arise."
What is our primary use case?
Splunk Enterprise Security serves as our primary tool for endpoint detection.
How has it helped my organization?
Our organization manages security across multiple cloud environments. Splunk Enterprise Security is a valuable tool in this process, offering a comprehensive dashboard that centralizes monitoring for all our cloud deployments. This unified view allows us to efficiently track security posture and identify potential threats from a single location.
Splunk Enterprise Security offers strong capabilities for detecting insider threats. This security platform excels at analyzing data from a variety of sources, allowing it to identify unusual user behavior patterns.
It does a good job of analyzing malicious activity and helps us detect threats faster.
Splunk Enterprise Security helps reduce our alert volume and helps speed up our security investigations.
In our financial institution client environment, The insider threat detection capabilities allow us to closely monitor credit and debit card transactions for any signs of compromise. By leveraging Splunk's capabilities, we can proactively identify and address potential security threats that might impact our client's financial data.
We have improved our incident response time with Splunk.
Splunk Enterprise offers a variety of apps that cater to different needs. These apps provide features like directory management, add-on and data model control, report dashboards, and alerts. Notably, some of these functionalities are available in the free version. Additionally, there are separate apps for security purposes. Our EMEA region has its own set of apps, allowing them to upgrade, maintain, and manage separate dashboards specific to their requirements.
Dashboards can be customized to allow users to easily monitor specific data relevant to their needs. This might include data segmented by country, region, or even customer credit card information. By customizing the view, users can quickly identify trends and gain insights into areas of particular interest. Additionally, dashboards can be configured to automatically display default information or alerts upon opening, further streamlining the monitoring process and ensuring users can find the specific data they need right away.
What is most valuable?
Splunk Enterprise Security is a valuable tool that allows us to monitor data from the APS daily. This monitoring focuses on the success or failure of APS calls. Successful calls are identified by a status code of 200, while unsuccessful calls are indicated by a status code of 400 or any other code. By monitoring these codes, we can proactively identify situations where the intended data retrieval fails due to backend server issues. This distinction is important because it helps us differentiate between failures caused by backend server problems and those resulting from issues with the monitoring team's ability to send requests. This clear separation allows a dedicated team to investigate these specific backend server failures and implement resolutions.
What needs improvement?
Data profiling, data onboarding, and data maintenance are all crucial steps in ensuring the quality and usability of our information. However, encountering missing files disrupts this process. When files are absent, troubleshooting becomes difficult, and performance issues inevitably arise.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for many years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Splunk Enterprise Security is stable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment is straightforward.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security eight out of ten.
Splunk Enterprise Security is a powerful security solution that offers flexibility. This flexibility empowers our team to adapt and respond to evolving threats. With Splunk Enterprise Security, we have the tools and adaptability to effectively address whatever security challenges we encounter.
I recommend Splunk Enterprise Security as the most suitable solution for monitoring and protecting our data.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Jun 2, 2024
Flag as inappropriateRisk Manager at Samapartners
Helps reduce alert volume, speeds up investigations, and can monitor multiple environments
Pros and Cons
- "Three features stand out for me: the SDK for writing Python, the customizable and adaptable diagnostic dashboard, and the optimizer for collecting data."
- "The threat detection system has room for improvement."
What is our primary use case?
As a software analyst, I utilize Splunk Enterprise Security for security purposes, including threat hunting on developed and customized applications for vulnerability management. I also use it to display dashboards, analyze data, and address alerts.
We implemented Splunk Enterprise Security to consolidate all our security data into a single platform. This has enhanced our visibility into our security posture and the potential threats we face.
How has it helped my organization?
Splunk Enterprise Security enables us to monitor multiple cloud environments, which is crucial for receiving real-time email alerts in the event of critical incidents. However, directing me to the source can be time-consuming compared to the verified swim methodology used by SIEMs. For my application, I have approximately ten million records. Directing me to the service code takes two minutes to instruct them to view the file using VLOOKUP. However, sending it to the capital takes about half an hour.
The ability to monitor multiple environments is excellent. We have customers who use Splunk Enterprise Security both on-premises and in the cloud. Both options have their merits, depending on the specific needs of the customer. If a customer has the required resources, the cloud is often the most suitable solution.
The robust threat detection capabilities of Splunk are essential for our project. However, it's crucial to manage user access carefully. While we need to grant access to certain users, we must not provide them with unrestricted capabilities. Splunk's granular access control feature empowers administrators to customize user permissions, ensuring that only authorized users have access to the necessary features.
Splunk's threat topology helps us identify the scope of an incident. This is crucial due to the high likelihood of unauthorized data being compromised, necessitating prompt incident detection.
Splunk Enterprise Security has facilitated the timely detection of threats, enabling us to swiftly customize it to identify a wider range of threats and potential risks. We can incorporate external scripts for enhanced threat intelligence and threat-hunting capabilities.
Before implementing Splunk Enterprise Security, we relied on a patchwork of other tools, each requiring manual implementation for data collection, rule definition, and threat identification. This approach was not optimized and occasionally resulted in delayed threat detection. Limiting our focus to device security alone proved insufficient, as it lacked the real-time threat actor intelligence and activity insights provided by Splunk Enterprise Security. Our reliance on licensed development restricted us to pre-built alerts or manually uploaded scripts for mitigation and response.
Splunk Enterprise Security has helped reduce our alert volume.
Splunk Enterprise Security has helped speed up our security investigation time.
What is most valuable?
Three features stand out for me: the SDK for writing Python, the customizable and adaptable diagnostic dashboard, and the optimizer for collecting data.
What needs improvement?
The threat detection system has room for improvement. The critical aspect for an organization is the timely detection of incidents. If the rules are not defined correctly, threats may not be detected in real-time, resulting in incidents being detected months or even years after they occur.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk Enterprise Security for almost seven years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of the solution eight out of ten.
I would rate the resilience an eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I contacted Splunk support once for a separate product.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was straightforward for me, likely due to my extensive experience using Splunk. When implementing the solution, we begin by defining customer needs and requirements to optimize Splunk. This involves identifying the systems necessary for daily use and ensuring the protection of the integrated licenses and external apps in the Splunk environment. This protection encompasses program security, cloud-based security, and data analysis for specific apps. Additionally, we configure personal authentication for private applications.
The deployment time is dependent on the specific requirements and can range from two to ten days.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was completed in-house.
What was our ROI?
Splunk Enterprise Security has delivered a return on investment through its effective threat detection and vulnerability response capabilities. We have successfully demonstrated this positive impact on our customers through comprehensive reports.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Splunk Enterprise Security nine out of ten.
While there may be cheaper solutions available, they lack the optimizer, dynamic dashboard, and security APIs that Splunk offers. These capabilities are not found in other solutions.
Maintenance is minimal for updates only.
When using Splunk Enterprise Security, ensure that optimization is performed correctly to minimize response times and resource consumption.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Splunk Enterprise Security Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: October 2024
Product Categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Log Management IT Operations AnalyticsPopular Comparisons
CrowdStrike Falcon
Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Sentinel
SentinelOne Singularity Complete
Microsoft Defender XDR
Azure Monitor
IBM Security QRadar
Elastic Security
AppDynamics
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Splunk Enterprise Security Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
- What are some of the best features and use-cases of Splunk?
- What SOC product do you recommend?
- Splunk as an Enterprise Class monitoring solution -- thoughts?
- What is the biggest difference between Dynatrace and Splunk?
- IBM QRadar is rated above competitors (McAfee, Splunk, LogRhythm) in Gartner's 2020 Magic Quandrant. Agree/Disagree?
- What are the advantages of ELK over Splunk?
- How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
- New risk scoring framework in the Splunk App for Enterprise Security -- thoughts?
- Splunk vs. Elastic Stack
- What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?