Splunk® Enterprise Security

Use Splunk Enterprise Security

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This documentation does not apply to the most recent version of Splunk® Enterprise Security. For documentation on the most recent version, go to the latest release.
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My Investigations

Track your active investigations on the My Investigations dashboard. View or filter your investigation timelines, or create a new one. You can view all timelines that you create, or collaborate on, using this dashboard.

ES40 Investigations.png

Start an investigation

Start an investigation by creating a new investigation timeline from the My Investigations dashboard.

  1. Click Create New Investigation.
  2. Type a title to replace the default one, and select the green checkmark to save it.
  3. (Optional) Type a description and select the green checkmark to save it.

See Investigation Timelines.

Manage your investigation timelines

Manage ongoing investigations from the My Investigations dashboard.

Filter investigations

Quickly locate an investigation timeline or refine the list of timelines using filters.

Filter by Description
Time Select a time range to view only the timelines last modified in the specified time period.
Title Type a value from the title of a timeline in the text box to view only matching timelines.

Delete investigations

You can delete individual or several timelines on the My Investigations dashboard. After you delete a timeline, you cannot restore it. Assess the audit or research value of a timeline before deleting it.

Delete an individual timeline from the Actions column.

  1. Click Remove.
  2. Confirm deletion of the timeline by clicking Remove.

Delete multiple timelines using the Edit Selection menu.

  1. Select the check box next to the timelines you want to delete.
  2. Click Edit Selection, and click Delete.
  3. Click Remove to confirm deleting the timeline.

Edit investigations

Open an investigation timeline to make changes.

  1. Locate the timeline you want to edit on the My Investigations dashboard.
  2. Click Edit in the Actions column to open the timeline.

See Investigation Timelines.

Data sources for investigations

stores investigation information in several KVStore collections. The investigations on the My Investigations dashboard, investigation timeline entries, and the action history items that you can add to a timeline each have their own collection. See My Investigations in the Dashboard requirements matrix.

You can search the KVStore collections directly by adding _lookup to the end of a KVStore collection using the inputlookup command. For example:

| inputlookup append=t action_history_lookup

Access to timelines

Users with the ess_admin role can create and view investigations by default. To allow other users to create or edit a timeline, add the `edit_timeline` capability. See Configure users and and roles in the Installation and Upgrade Manual.

After an investigation timeline is created, only the owner of and collaborators added to that timeline can view and edit it. However, a user with the ess_analyst role can view timeline information for any investigation by querying the relevant KV Store collection using inputlookup.

Action history data sources

Action history items do not show up immediately. Five saved searches create action history items. After these saved searches run, the action history items can be viewed and added to an investigation timeline.

View the searches by navigating to Configure > Content Management and using the filters on the page. If you modify these saved searches, action history items could stop appearing in your action history.

  • Dashboard Views - Action History
  • Search Tracking - Action History
  • Per-Panel Filtering - Action History
  • Notable Suppression - Action History
  • Notable Status - Action History

If you want to exclude a search from your action history, use the Action History Search Tracking Whitelist lookup. See Configure lists and lookups for more about lookups.

Last modified on 07 February, 2017
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This documentation applies to the following versions of Splunk® Enterprise Security: 4.5.0, 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.5.3


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