Splunk® Enterprise

Securing Splunk Enterprise

Splunk Enterprise version 9.0 will no longer be supported as of June 14, 2024. See the Splunk Software Support Policy for details. For information about upgrading to a supported version, see How to upgrade Splunk Enterprise.

How to secure and harden your Splunk platform instance

Use this checklist as a roadmap to help you secure your Splunk platform installation and protect your data.

Set up authenticated users and manage user access on the Splunk platform

You can harden a Splunk platform deployment by carefully managing who can access the deployment at a given time.

Additional hardening options for Splunk Enterprise only

If you run a Splunk Enterprise deployment, you have the following additional options to secure the deployment:

Use certificates and encryption to secure communications for your Splunk Enterprise configuration

Splunk Enterprise comes with a set of default certificates and keys that demonstrate encryption. Where possible, acquire and deploy your own certificates and configure them to secure Splunk Enterprise communications. See Introduction to securing the Splunk platform with TLS. You can activate and use the Splunk Assist service to gain insight into your certificate usage and configurations. See Introduction to Splunk Assist to learn more about the service.

Harden your Splunk Enterprise instances to reduce vulnerability and risk

Audit your Splunk Enterprise instance regularly

Audit events provide information about what has changed in your Splunk platform instance configuration. It gives you the where and when, as well as the identity of who implemented the change.

  • Audit your system regularly to monitor user and administrator access, as well as other activities that could tip you off to unsafe practices or security breaches.
  • Keep an eye on activities within your Splunk platform deployment, such as searches or configuration changes. You can use this information for compliance reporting, troubleshooting, and attribution during incidence response.
  • Audit events are especially useful in distributed Splunk Enterprise configurations for detecting configuration and access control changes across many Splunk Enterprise instances. To learn more, see Audit Splunk Enterprise activity.
  • Use the file system-based monitoring available out of the box on most Splunk-supported operating systems. For more information about monitoring, see Monitor Files and Directories in the Getting Data In Manual.
Last modified on 10 November, 2023
About securing the Splunk platform   Security updates

This documentation applies to the following versions of Splunk® Enterprise: 9.0.0, 9.0.1, 9.0.2, 9.0.3, 9.0.4, 9.0.5, 9.0.6, 9.0.7, 9.0.8, 9.0.9, 9.0.10, 9.1.0, 9.1.1, 9.1.2, 9.1.3, 9.1.4, 9.1.5, 9.1.6, 9.2.0, 9.2.1, 9.2.2, 9.2.3, 9.3.0, 9.3.1


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