What is Splunk SOAR?

Splunk SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation and Response) is a market-leading platform that empowers security teams to automate repetitive tasks, orchestrate workflows, and respond to incidents with speed and consistency. Backed by a unified interface and deep integration capability, SOAR is designed to help security operation centres (SOCs) work smarter and faster, reducing response times and improving outcomes at scale.

The Role of SOAR in Modern Security Operations

Splunk SOAR plays a pivotal role in the most complete, unified threat detection, investigation, and response solution available today. It forms a foundational layer in the modern SOC by bringing together security automation to complete tasks in seconds. Whether integrated with Splunk Enterprise Security or used as a standalone solution, SOAR enables teams to work more efficiently and react more quickly. Through its use of playbooks, integrations, and.event-driven triggers, SOAR reduces manual overhead, enriches investigations, and ensures informed decision-making - with or without direct analyst input.

User Interface and Navigation Overview

The SOAR interface is designed to feel familiar to existing Splunk users. Upon login, users are greeted with a dashboard featuring navigation menus for investigation, automation, and general platform settings. A time range picker and search bar allows users to filter events, investigations, and playbooks with ease.
Quick-access features include:
• Event filtering by label, severity, or user ownership
•Instance version details
•Keyboard shortcuts and a 'wayfinder' for faster navigation
•Customisable dashboards with widgets and display preferences

System Configuration and Administration

Within the administration section, users can manage all core configuration elements:
•Company settings such as instance name, time zone, and base URL
•License and usage management including seats, event counts, and expiry dates
•Environment and password vault settings for secure customisation
•Email configurations, source control, and forwarder options
•Asset permissions, authentication methods, and role-based access controls
In addition, the system health dashboard provides visual monitoring for ingestion trends, debugging information, and log export options for further analysis.

Investigations and Event Management

The investigation section houses all event-related content. Events can be filtered by type, severity, and status. Analysts can quickly move between events, cases, tasks, and indicators. Each element includes clear metadata such as ownership, sensitivity, and timestamps. Labels play an important role in categorising events. For example, the 'email' label can be applied to phishing reports, triggering specific playbooks to analyse those artefacts further.

Automation Through Playbooks

SOAR's automation section allows users to build, manage, and execute playbooks - the engine behind automated response.
Key components include:
•Playbooks (classic and modern mode) with filtering by repository or status
•Custom functions and custom lists for modular, reusable logic
•Apps and integrations from the extensive Splunk ecosystem
Installed apps, such as VirusTotal and Zscaler, come with pre-defined actions (e.g. URL reputation checks, blocking malicious domains) that can be embedded into automated workflows.

Building and Executing a Simple Playbook

Playbooks in SOAR can be created using a visual drag-and-drop interface or block-based logic. One example begins with scanning a suspicious URL using the VirusTotal integration. If a threshold of malicious detections is met, the playbook can then use Zscaler to block the URL, all without human intervention.

Each step is defined as a block - including action blocks, decision branches, and filters. Playbooks can be labelled to trigger on specific types of events (e.g., emails) and saved into repositories with version comments for tracking development.

Execution is straightforward: from the analyst view of an event, a user simply selects the relevant playbook, ensures it's set to run against all artefacts, and launches it. Real-time feedback is displayed via widgets, showing the success or failure of each stage in the playbook.

Using Advanced Playbooks with Human Input

Beyond basic automation, SOAR supports more complex playbooks with conditional logic and human input. A prompt allows analysts (or even non-SOAR users), to be notified and consulted mid-playbook before a potentially destructive action is taken, such as deleting an email or quarantining a file.

These prompts are fully customisable, featuring tailored questions and response options. This introduces a balance between automation and control, empowering teams to automate where possible while maintaining oversight when needed.

Scaling with Confidence

From manual investigations to fully automated workflows, Splunk SOAR provides the flexibility and power to meet the evolving demands of modern security operations. Whether used to reduce repetitive tasks, improve analyst efficiency, or enable faster, more accurate incident response, SOAR transforms how organisations defend against threats.

As organisations face growing pressure to do more with less, SOAR enables teams to move from reactive to proactive, scaling their capabilities without needing to scale their headcount.