Splunk is software for searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated big data, via a web-style interface. It captures, indexes and correlates real-time data in a searchable repository from which it can generate graphs, reports, alerts, dashboards and visualizations.
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Symantec Content & Malware Analysis
Score 8.3 out of 10
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Symantec Content & Malware Analysis is an application which provides advanced threat detection and threat hunting through advanced machine learning, based on intelligence gathered from ProxySG, threat intelligence services, and other sources.
It's well suited for what I do, which is network security operations. And that's for anything from troubleshooting incidents, troubleshooting performance, troubleshooting for the purpose of a compliance and auditing. It's not best suited for users who are new in terms of they're new to the product and they have expectations that probably Splunk cannot meet.
If you have Symantec based environment including Symantec proxy and endpoints, Content and Malware Analysis is the obvious choice. You can't run the CAS-MAS as a standalone deployment, you need proxies or ICAP supported devices capable to send the files/URLS. It's not a network security device where you can flow/direct the traffic to C/MAS. It does not have UBA, NBA or NTR features, it is just working for analyzing files as expected.
We are using Splunk extensively in our projects and we have recently upgraded to Splunk version 6.0 which is quite efficient and giving expected results. We keep track of updates and new features Splunk introduces periodically and try to introduce those features in our day to day activities for improvement in our reporting system and other tasks.
You can literally throw in a single word into Splunk and it will pull back all instances of that word across all of your logs for the time span you select (provided you have permission to see that data). We have several users who have taken a few of the free courses from Splunk that are able to pull data out of it everyday with little help at all.
Splunk maintains a well resourced support system that has been consistent since we purchased the product. They help out in a timely manner and provide expert level information as needed. We typically open cases online and communicate when possible via e-mail and are able to resolve most issues with that method.
The online course was simple clear and described the main capabilities of the solution. There is also an initial module that can be done for free so anyone can familiarize themselves with the functionality of this solution. On the other hand, however, there could be more free online courses. Maybe even with a certificate, this would broaden the group of people who are familiar with the platform while increasing familiarity with the solution itself.
I didn't get to fully evaluate Logstash as our corporation was already using Logstash, but both seemed like viable solutions to the problem that we were having. I wanted to evaluate Logstash some more, both did seem like they would work for the business needs that we had, we went with splunk as many teams were already using it.
We have been using many solutions even tested nearly all available 0day sandbox solutions in the market. We choose Symantec CMA as we have already Symantec endpoint protection/EDR on the client, Symantec proxy for the web access, SCMA fits our environment. We have a big bargain when we puchase lots of equipment from the Symantec. Detection and prevention is very good at SCMA but some constant issues; like the product is not designed for heterogeneous environments, we can not integrate the SCMA with WAFs, it's lacking in api and request/reply calls. There's no file scanning, discover the option. SIEM integration is not smooth. I can not run some of the SOAR playbooks through the SCMA.
I don't have any numbers to share but Splunk has positively served as a 24/7 monitoring tool that has saved hours of work by self-detecting, saving statistics and alerting problems in the system or from external interfaces as soon as they happen.
Splunk dashboards does a solid job in collecting, analyzing data and creating reports that contain an entire day's activity and then automatically sent out to the business.
Splunk is very easy to learn and very useful to any program or business application.
As the SSL is inspected and analyzed at Bluecoat proxy servers, hidden threats, malicous files are passed to SCMA to be analyzed.
Getting full visibility at file trajectory level
As it's a full proxy and ICAP integration, we are sure that the files are to analyzed and scanned for malicious activity. This is a big plus compared to NGFW analyze concept, as the NGFWs have special failsafe mechanisms allowing bypass of file analysis. SCMA fully catches the hidden threats.
Flawless integration with Bluecoat systems is a big plus, customers are getting the same type of messages within their browsers.
A negative impact is the standardization when I deploy SCAM to one of our locations. Then the auditors demand the same coverage within other areas and it comes with the cost. Especially maintaining these devices on premise environment has a significant cost.
