What is Splunk Security Essentials (SSE)?

Introduction to Splunk Security Essentials

Splunk Security Essentials is a free app designed to help organisations improve their security posture. It simplifies the process of setting up and managing security-related data in Splunk, making it an essential tool regardless of your organisation’s security maturity level. The app provides pre-built, use-case driven content including dashboards, detection rules, and analytic stories to streamline security operations and reduce time to value.

What Is Splunk Security Essentials?

Splunk Security Essentials is a free application that helps organisations improve their security visibility. It offers:
• A growing library of pre-built content
• Support for mapping content against the MITRE ATT&CK framework
• Integration options for both standard and premium Splunk apps
• Regular updates with new content from a dedicated Splunk team

The Security Data Journey

The app uses a unique concept called the "Security Data Journey" to benchmark your organisation’s current maturity in Splunk security usage. This is broken down into stages, from 1 to 6, where:
• Stage 1-2 includes fundamental logging and understanding your environment
• Stages 3–4 typically involve implementation of Enterprise Security (ES)
• Stage 5 refers to orchestration and automation (e.g., SOAR)
• Stage 6 often includes use of User Behaviour Analytics (UBA)

Each stage details the data sources required and shows what security content becomes applicable as you mature.

Security Content Catalogue

The app offers a vast catalogue of over 1,400 searches and use cases. These can be filtered by security journey stage, required apps (e.g., ES, SOAR, UBA), and the data sources you have available.
The content includes:
• Dashboards
• Saved searches
• Detection rules
• MITRE technique mapping

Icons next to each search indicate whether content is for standard Splunk, ES, UBA, or SOAR.

Data Inventory Dashboard

The Data Inventory page allows users to review the types of data currently ingested in their Splunk environment. This inventory ensures you know which content is actually applicable to your organisation.
When used in combination with the MITRE ATT&CK heatmap, you can clearly visualise:
• What you currently cover
• What’s partially covered
• Where there are content gaps
It allows you to prioritise future data onboarding or analytic implementation

Example Use Case: Brute Force Detection

Using the “Basic Brute Force Detection” content, users get:
• A description of the use case
• MITRE mappings
• Required data sources
• Example SPL with line-by-line breakdowns

The app allows toggling between demo and live data, with live data searches including prerequisites and instructions for tuning the search for production use. Many searches also come with mock dashboard panels that can be copied and reused.

Bookmarks and Workflow Tracking

The bookmarking feature allows for structured implementation of content. Users can mark each piece as:
• Default
• Waiting on data
• Deployment issues
• Tuning
• Ready for deployment
• Successfully deployed

This enables better tracking of progress within a team and helps manage workloads across multiple use cases.

Analytic Stories

Analytic stories are collections of related searches grouped under a single use case. For example, the “Active Directory Lateral Movement” story includes over 20 individual searches to comprehensively detect this activity. Rather than relying on a single search to cover a complex topic, stories allow for depth, tuning, and scalability. They are not all intended to be enabled at once but instead reviewed for relevance, tuned for your environment, and enabled as needed.

Ransomware Dashboard

Splunk Security Essentials offers a dedicated ransomware section which maps content across the ransomware lifecycle including:
• Phishing
• Backup destruction
• Payload delivery

This enables proactive threat detection, especially for organisations in high-risk sectors like public services.

Final Thoughts

Splunk Security Essentials is useful for both beginners and advanced users. It shortens implementation time for best practice detections and dashboards while helping teams scale their security efforts intelligently.
Key benefits include:
• Free to use
• Regularly updated
• Tailored to your organisation's current maturity
• Supports both manual and automated environments