Configure asset and identity correlation in Splunk Enterprise Security

After you add your asset and identity data to Splunk Enterprise Security, configure asset and identity correlation in Splunk Enterprise Security.

Prerequisite

Verify that your asset and identity data was added to Splunk Enterprise Security

Steps

1. Choose whether to turn on asset and identity correlation, turn it off, or restrict correlation to occur only for select source types. If in doubt, keep asset and identity correlation turned on. See How asset and identity correlation works for more information about how the correlation enriches events at search time.
2. From the Splunk ES menu bar, select Configure, then Datasets, then Assets and identities, then Correlation setup.
3. Select a setup. If you choose Activate / Turn on selectively by sourcetype, type a source type and select the check box for asset and/or identity.
4. Select Save.

Correlation is turned off by default when deployed from a search head deployer. Disabling asset and identity correlation completely prevents events from being enriched with asset and identity data from the asset and identity lookups. This might prevent detections, dashboards, and other functionality from working as expected. Consult with Splunk Professional Services or Splunk Support before disabling asset and identity correlation.

How asset and identity correlation works

To effectively detect security intrusions, an organization must be able to correlate events in log data with specific assets and identities that may be responsible for, or affected by the intrusion. When asset and identity correlation is turned on, Splunk Enterprise Security compares indexed events with asset and identity data in the asset and identity lists to provide data enrichment and context. The comparison process uses automatic lookups. You can find information about automatic lookups in the Splunk platform documentation.

• For Splunk Enterprise, see Make your lookup automatic in the Splunk Enterprise Knowledge Manager Manual.
• For Splunk Cloud, see Make your lookup automatic in the Splunk Cloud Knowledge Manager Manual.

Asset and identity correlation enriches events with asset and identity data at search time.

• Asset correlation compares events that contain data in any of the src, dest, or dvc fields against the merged asset lists for matching IP address, MAC address, DNS name, or Windows NetBIOS names. Asset correlation no longer occurs automatically against the host or orig_host fields.
• Identity correlation compares events that contain data in any of the user or src_user fields against the merged identity lists for a matching user or session.
• Enterprise Security adds the matching output fields to the event. For example, correlation on the asset src field results in additional fields such as src_is_expected and src_should_timesync.

Asset and identity correlation allows you to determine whether multiple events can relate to the same asset or identity. You can also perform actions on the identity and asset fields added to events to open additional searches or dashboards scoped to the specific asset or identity. For example, open the Asset Investigator dashboard on a src field.