Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense Analyst Practice Exam

Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense Analyst Practice Exam

About Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense Analyst Exam

Validate your expertise in cybersecurity defense with the Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense Analyst certification. This exam is designed for intermediate-level professionals using Splunk Enterprise and Enterprise Security, focusing on analytics, threat-hunting, risk-based alerting, and industry best practices.

Who should take the exam?

• Career Builders: Advance your career with a certification that enhances your professional profile as a Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense Analyst.
• SOC Analysts: Solidify your role in cybersecurity defense and optimize efficiency using Splunk Enterprise and Enterprise Security tools.
• Cybersecurity Professionals: Elevate your career in SOC analysis or cyber defense by becoming a certified Splunk Cybersecurity Defense Analyst.

Exam Details

• Exam Level: Intermediate
• Exam Prerequisites: None
• Exam Duration: 75 minutes
• Exam Format: 66 multiple-choice questions

Skills Acquired

This certification exam evaluates your ability to detect, analyze, and combat cyber threats using Splunk Enterprise and Enterprise Security. Topics include understanding the cyber landscape, threat and attack types, defenses and SIEM best practices, investigation and event handling, efficient searching with SPL, and advanced threat hunting techniques.

Course Outline

The Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense Analyst Exam covers the following topics -

Domain 1 - Understanding Cyber Landscape, Frameworks, and Standards (10%)

• 1.1 Summarize the typical structure of a Security Operations Center (SOC) and delineate the responsibilities of Analysts, Engineers, and Architects.
  
• 1.2 Identify prevalent cyber industry controls, standards, and frameworks, and explore how Splunk integrates these frameworks.
• 1.3 Define fundamental security concepts such as information assurance, encompassing confidentiality, integrity, availability, and basic risk management principles.

Domain 2 - Understanding Threat and Attack Types, Motivations, and Tactics (20%)

• 2.1 Recognize common types of cyber threats and attack vectors frequently encountered in the industry.
  
• 2.2 Define key terms including supply chain attack, ransomware, registry manipulation, exfiltration, social engineering, DoS, DDoS, botnets, C2 (Command and Control), zero trust, account takeover, email compromise, threat actor, APT (Advanced Persistent Threat), and adversary.
• 2.3 Identify the various tiers of Threat Intelligence and explore their application in threat analysis.
• 2.4 Outline the purpose and scope of annotations within Splunk Enterprise Security.
• 2.5 Define tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and their significance in the cybersecurity domain.

Domain 3 - Understanding Defenses, Data Sources, and SIEM Best Practices (20%)

• 3.1 Identify common cyber defense systems, analysis tools, and essential data sources utilized for effective threat analysis.
  
• 3.2 Describe best practices for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), and foundational concepts of Splunk Enterprise Security including CIM (Common Information Model), Data Models, data acceleration, Asset and Identity frameworks, and CIM fields used in investigations.
• 3.3 Explain how Splunk Security Essentials and Splunk Enterprise Security are leveraged to assess data sources, including common sourcetypes for both on-premises and cloud deployments, and methods to locate content for specific sourcetypes.

Domain 4 - Understanding Investigation, Event Handling, Correlation, and Risk (20%)

• 4.1 Detail the process of continuous monitoring and the five essential stages of investigation according to Splunk methodologies.
  
• 4.2 Explain various analyst performance metrics such as Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) and dwell time.
• 4.3 Demonstrate proficiency in identifying common event dispositions and correctly assigning them within a security context.
• 4.4 Define key terms and components of Splunk Enterprise Security, including SPL (Search Processing Language), Notable Events, Risk Notables, Adaptive Response Actions, Risk Objects, and Contributing Events.
• 4.5 Identify common built-in dashboards available in Enterprise Security and summarize the essential information they present.
• 4.6 Understand and articulate the essentials of Risk-Based Alerting, the Risk framework, and the process of creating correlation searches within Enterprise Security.

Domain 5 - Understanding SPL and Efficient Searching (20%)

• 5.1 Explain essential SPL terms and their application in security analysis, including TSTATS, TRANSACTION, FIRST/LAST, REX, EVAL, FOREACH, LOOKUP, and MAKERESULTS.
  
• 5.2 Provide examples of best practices for composing efficient searches within Splunk.
• 5.3 Identify SPL resources available within Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Security Essentials, and Splunk Lantern.

Domain 6 - Understanding Threat Hunting and Remediation (10%)

• 6.1 Identify various threat hunting techniques, including configuration, anomaly modeling, indicator-based analytics, and behavioral analytics.
  
• 6.2 Define long tail analysis, outlier detection, and outline common steps involved in hypothesis hunting using Splunk.
• 6.3 Determine appropriate scenarios for employing adaptive response actions and configure them accordingly.
• 6.4 Explain the use of SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) playbooks and enumerate basic methods for triggering them from within Splunk Enterprise Security.