Splunk Provider

In this document we describe the Splunk data connector feature of MSTICPy. This feature is built on-top of the Splunk Enterprise SDK for Python with some customizations and enhancements.

Splunk Configuration

Splunk SDK Installation

The Splunk SDK is an optional dependency of MSTICPy. To install it, run the following:

# Only run first time to install/upgrade msticpy to latest version
%pip install --upgrade msticpy[splunk]

Splunk Configuration in MSTICPy

You can store your connection details in msticpyconfig.yaml.

For more information on using and configuring msticpyconfig.yaml see msticpy Package Configuration and MSTICPy Settings Editor

The settings in the file should look like the following:

DataProviders:
  ...
  Splunk:
      Args:
        host: splunk_host
        port: '8089'
        username: splunk_user
        password: [PLACEHOLDER]

We strongly recommend storing the password secret value in Azure Key Vault. You can replace the text value with a referenced to a Key Vault secret using the MSTICPy configuration editor.

DataProviders:
  ...
  Splunk:
      Args:
        host: splunk_host
        port: '8089'
        username: splunk_user
        password:
          KeyVault:

Required connection parameters:

Parameter	Description
host	(string) The host name (the default is ‘localhost’).
username	(string) The Splunk account username, which is used to authenticate the Splunk instance.
password	(string) The password for the Splunk account.
bearer_token	(string) The Authorization Bearer Token <JWT> created in the Splunk.

The username and password are needed for user account authentication. On the other hand, bearer_token is needed for Token authentication. The user auth method has a priority to token auth method if both username and bearer_token are set.

Optional configuration parameters:

Parameter	Description
port	(integer) The port number (the default is 8089).
http_scheme	(‘https’ or ‘http’) The scheme for accessing the service (the default is ‘https’).
verify	(Boolean) Enable (True) or disable (False) SSL verification for https connections. (optional, the default is True)
owner	(string) The owner context of the namespace (optional).
app	(string) The app context of the namespace (optional).
sharing	(‘global’, ‘system’, ‘app’, or ‘user’) The sharing mode for the namespace (the default is ‘user’).
token	(string) The current session token (optional). Session tokens can be shared across multiple service instances.
cookie	(string) A session cookie. When provided, you don’t need to call login(). This parameter is only supported for Splunk 6.2+.
autologin	(boolean) When True, automatically tries to log in again if the session terminates.

Loading a QueryProvider for Splunk

splunk_prov = QueryProvider("Splunk")

Connecting to Splunk

Authentication for the Splunk data provider is handled by specifying credentials directly in the connect call or specifying the credentials in msticpy config file.

For more information on how to create new user with appropriate roles and permissions, follow the Splunk documents:

Securing the Spunk platform

and

About users and roles

The user should have permission to at least run its own searches or more depending upon the actions to be performed by user.

Once you created user account with the appropriate roles, you will require the following details to specify while connecting:

host = “localhost” (Splunk server FQDN hostname to connect, for locally installed splunk, you can specify localhost)
port = “8089” (Splunk REST API)
username = “admin” (username to connect to Splunk instance)
password = “yourpassword” (password of the user specified in username)

On the other hand, you can use the authentification token to connect.

Create authentication token

host = “localhost” (Splunk server FQDN hostname to connect, for locally installed splunk, you can specify localhost)
port = “8089” (Splunk REST API)
bearer_token = “<Authorization Bearer Token>” (token can be used instead of username/password)

Once you have details, you can specify it in msticpyconfig.yaml as described earlier.

Authenticate using the following, if you have stored your configuration in msticpyconfig.yaml

splunk_prov.connect()

Or provide connection parameters explicitly. You can also have some of the required parameters stored in your configuration and specify others (e.g. password) at connect time, as a parameter to connect.

You can also use any of the optional parameters described earlier as parameters to connect.

splunk_prov.connect(host=<hostname>, username=<username>, password=<password>)

OR

splunk_prov.connect(host=<hostname>, bearer_token=<token_string>)

Listing available queries

Upon connecting to the Splunk data environment, we can take a look what query options available to us by running QUERY_PROVIDER.list_queries()

For more information, see Getting Help for a query.

This will display all the saved searches from the connected splunk instance and also pre-built custom queries to do common operations such as list datatypes, list saved searches, alerts, audittrail informaion.

splunk_prov.list_queries()

['Alerts.list_all_alerts',
 'SavedSearches.Errors_in_the_last_24_hours',
 'SavedSearches.Errors_in_the_last_hour',
 'SavedSearches.License_Usage_Data_Cube',
 'SavedSearches.Load_sample_User_Agreements',
 'SavedSearches.Messages_by_minute_last_3_hours',
 'SavedSearches.Orphaned_scheduled_searches',
 'SavedSearches.Score-Base',
 'SavedSearches.Splunk_errors_last_24_hours',
 'SavedSearches.Website_Performance_Problem',
 'SavedSearches.inoperable_sites_rangemap',
 'SavedSearches.slow_sites_avg_rangemap',
 'SavedSearches.slow_sites_rangemap',
 'SavedSearches.web_ping_inputs_lookup_gen',
 'SavedSearches.website_availability_overview',
 'SavedSearches.website_performance_problems',
 'SplunkGeneral.get_events_parameterized',
 'SplunkGeneral.list_all_datatypes',
 'SplunkGeneral.list_all_savedsearches',
 'audittrail.list_all_audittrail']

In order to get help for specific query , you can execute QUERY_PROVIDER.<QueryName>? .

For more information, see Getting Help for a query <DataProviders:getting-help-for-a-query>

splunk_prov.SplunkGeneral.get_events_parameterized?

Query:  get_events_parameterized
Data source:  Splunk
Generic parameterized query from index/source

Parameters
----------
add_query_items: str (optional)
    Additional query clauses
    (default value is: | head 100)
end: datetime (optional)
    Query end time
    (default value is: current time + 1 day)
index: str (optional)
    Splunk index name
    (default value is: *)
project_fields: str (optional)
    Project Field names
    (default value is: | table TimeCreated, host, EventID, EventDescripti...)
source: str (optional)
    Splunk source type
    (default value is: *)
start: datetime (optional)
    Query start time
    (default value is: current time - 1 day)
timeformat: str (optional)
    Datetime format to use in Splunk query
    (default value is: "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%6N")
Query:
 search index={index} source={source} timeformat={timeformat} earliest={start} latest={end} {project_fields} {add_query_items}

If you want to print the query prior to executing, pass ‘print’ as an argument

splunk_prov.SplunkGeneral.get_events_parameterized('print')

' search index=* source=* timeformat="%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%6N" earliest="2020-08-15 19:15:47.466710" latest="2020-08-15 19:15:47.466938" | table TimeCreated, host, EventID, EventDescription, User, process, cmdline, Image, parent_process, ParentCommandLine, dest, Hashes | head 100'

If you have set the arguments and then would like to validate the query, use below example

splunk_prov.SplunkGeneral.get_events_parameterized('print',
    index="botsv2",
    source="WinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational",
    timeformat="%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S",
    start="2017-08-25 00:00:00",
    end="2017-08-25 10:00:00"
)

' search index=botsv2 source=WinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational
  timeformat=%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S earliest="2017-08-25 00:00:00" latest="2017-08-25 10:00:00"
  | table TimeCreated, host, EventID, EventDescription, User, process, cmdline, Image,
  parent_process, ParentCommandLine, dest, Hashes | head 100'

Running pre-defined queries

In order to run pre-defined query , execute with the name either by setting values for arguments if available or run with default arguments.

For more information , refer to the documentation Running a pre-defined query

splunk_prov.SplunkGeneral.get_events_parameterized(
    index="botsv2",
    source="WinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational",
    start="2017-08-25 00:00:00.000000",
    end="2017-08-25 10:00:00.000000"
)

0	TimeCreated	host	EventID	EventDescription	User	process
0	2017-08-25T04:57:45.512440700Z	venus	3	Network Connect	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	powershell.exe
1	2017-08-25T04:57:45.213738500Z	wrk-aturing	5	Process Terminate	nan	conhost.exe
2	2017-08-25T04:57:45.213738500Z	wrk-aturing	5	Process Terminate	nan	cscript.exe
3	2017-08-25T04:57:45.088941700Z	wrk-aturing	1	Process Create	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	conhost.exe
4	2017-08-25T04:57:45.088941700Z	wrk-aturing	1	Process Create	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	cscript.exe
…	…	…	…	…	…	…
95	2017-08-25T04:57:02.003800000Z	wrk-ghoppy	1	Process Create	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	splunk-powershell.exe
96	2017-08-25T04:57:01.170335100Z	venus	3	Network Connect	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	powershell.exe
97	2017-08-25T04:57:01.941402000Z	wrk-ghoppy	5	Process Terminate	nan	splunk-winprintmon.exe
98	2017-08-25T04:57:01.863404500Z	wrk-ghoppy	1	Process Create	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	splunk-netmon.exe
99	2017-08-25T04:57:01.754208000Z	wrk-ghoppy	5	Process Terminate	nan	splunk-powershell.exe

By-default, splunk query results are limited to 100. you can specify count=0 argument to return all the results. Default value for add_query_items argument is set to | head 100 which you can reset as shown in below example while retrieving all results.

splunk_prov.SplunkGeneral.get_events_parameterized(
    index="botsv2",
    source="WinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational",
    start="2017-08-25 00:00:00.000000",
    end="2017-08-25 10:00:00.000000",
    add_query_items='',
    count=0
)

0	TimeCreated	host	EventID	EventDescription	User	process
0	2017-08-25T04:57:45.512440700Z	venus	3	Network Connect	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	powershell.exe
1	2017-08-25T04:57:45.213738500Z	wrk-aturing	5	Process Terminate	nan	conhost.exe
2	2017-08-25T04:57:45.213738500Z	wrk-aturing	5	Process Terminate	nan	cscript.exe
3	2017-08-25T04:57:45.088941700Z	wrk-aturing	1	Process Create	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	conhost.exe
4	2017-08-25T04:57:45.088941700Z	wrk-aturing	1	Process Create	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	cscript.exe
…	…	…	…	…	…	…
95	2017-08-25T04:57:02.003800000Z	wrk-ghoppy	1	Process Create	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	splunk-powershell.exe
96	2017-08-25T04:57:01.170335100Z	venus	3	Network Connect	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	powershell.exe
97	2017-08-25T04:57:01.941402000Z	wrk-ghoppy	5	Process Terminate	nan	splunk-winprintmon.exe
98	2017-08-25T04:57:01.863404500Z	wrk-ghoppy	1	Process Create	NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM	splunk-netmon.exe
99	2017-08-25T04:57:01.754208000Z	wrk-ghoppy	5	Process Terminate	nan	splunk-powershell.exe

Running an ad hoc Splunk query

You can also create your own query and run it via the Splunk provider using this syntax: QUERY_PROVIDER.exec_query(<query_text>)

For more information, check documentation Running an ad hoc query

splunk_query = '''
search index="blackhat" sourcetype="network" earliest=0
| table TimeGenerated, TotalBytesSent
'''
df = splunk_prov.exec_query(splunk_query)
df.head()

0	TimeGenerated	TotalBytesSent
0	2020-07-02T10:00:00Z	27055
1	2020-07-02T09:00:00Z	33777
2	2020-07-02T08:00:00Z	27355
3	2020-07-02T07:00:00Z	25544
4	2020-07-02T06:00:00Z	11771