Doug Merritt, President & CEO In the headlong race toward digital transformation, enterprise security remains the biggest concern for organizations across industries. Whether cybercrime, ransomware, or IoT attacks, the threat vectors today are endless, and the eminence of a viable security solution and best practice strategies cannot be overstated. The recent WannaCry-related ransomware attack on Apple chipmaker, TSMC that led to the immediate shut down of some of its factories is a wake-up call for organizations world over. Not to mention that according to research, cybercrime damage is expected to hit $6 trillion by 2021. In such a scenario, businesses that show complacency toward their security are only closing in impending downfall.
But there is a simple way to stay ahead of an advancing threat landscape with Splunk [NASDAQ: SPLK]—the single source of truth to drive superior and swift security decisions. Trusted by 89 of the Fortune 100 companies, from TransUnion to CocaCola and Autodesk, Splunk needs no introduction and is renowned world over for its inimitable application management and security solutions. Splunk enterprise security solutions form the nerve center of an organization’s existing security ecosystem, giving teams unparalleled insights into internal and external attacks, risk management, and actionable intelligence. “Organizations around the world are increasingly turning to Splunk to get strategic business answers from their machine data. Our opportunity is massive,” says Doug Merritt, President and CEO, Splunk.
Ahead of Threats with Proactive Security
The company offers a full suite of premium security solutions that can be adopted as a platform and covers risk mitigation, incident analysis and response, and compliance management. For starters, the Splunk platform ingests any cloud, on-premise, or hybrid machine data, investigates activities associated with potential security incidents, and combats threats with actionable intelligence and automated workflows. A futuristic solution that safeguards enterprises in the truest sense, Splunk leverages AI and machine learning to streamline investigations and attack details and offers a sequential relationship to determine the next step. “Our increasing product innovation is fueling customers’ success and our continued growth,” states Merritt. The Splunk user behavior analytics is another state-of-the-art offering that uses ML algorithms to produce risk ratings and supporting evidence that enables threat hunters to augment existing security techniques as well as investigate suspicious behavior.
Organizations around the world are increasingly turning to Splunk to get strategic business answers from their machine data
To battle any breach, the Splunk platform also provides continuous security monitoring of critical entities. The platform extends an alert management feature, risk scores, investigative tools, and customizable dashboards and visualizations for easy detection and rapid response. Encompassing every aspect of security, Splunk even enables enterprises to stay up-to-date with compliance mandates, while maintaining cyber-hygiene and reducing time and errors. The platform reflects real-time posture across all security controls to clear compliance and pass audits with minimal effort, regardless of mandate or regulatory framework.
Splunk Enterprise Security was the solution of choice for a leading biopharmaceutical company that was held down by an antiquated security tool. The company had data centers located in multiple locations, and due to its legacy security information and event management (SIEM), it was challenging for the security team to bring in data from the various silos together to get the much-needed visibility and stay ahead of threats. Without preemptive security insight, the company was concerned that it might face regulatory and compliance penalties that could damage its reputation and stock price. The organization needed a security solution that was flexible and scalable enough to ingest all of its data ubiquitously and would enable the security team to draw conclusions from its data in near real time. With Splunk, the client’s security team was able to receive immediate insights and the overall resolution time reduced from months to minutes. They witnessed a 30 percent lower cost of ownership compared to on-premises alternatives, alongside faster time to value. Before Splunk ES the company was in the dark about whether they were meeting regulations, but now the company can be proactive with these requirements, demonstrating that it is in compliance, avoiding penalties and the deterioration of its brand reputation.
The End of Breaches
To protect organizations, specifically from ransomware outbreaks, the Splunk ES platform can be licensed and priced for addressing ransomware through a free application. Splunk Insights for Ransomware gives organizations top-level ransomware indicators such as vulnerable hosts or evidence of compromise. In the case of Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose (CDM), the nonprofit had a limited budget to work with and lacked a solution that could provide holistic visibility into IT and security operations. With Splunk ES, the museum reduced spam by 98 percent, eliminated underperforming systems and in the process saved thousands of dollars annually.
In the early half of 2018, the company also acquired Phantom Cyber Corporation, a leader in security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR). “The combination of Splunk’s machine data platform with Phantom’s SOAR technology will accelerate a new age of analytics-driven security and expand Splunk’s vision as the security nerve center for SOCs around the world,” mentions Merritt. Organizations looking to leverage their existing security investments can also opt for the Phantom security operations platform that supports six key functions in the security operations center (SOC) to help work smarter, respond faster, and strengthen defenses. Phantom allows organizations to codify workflows into automated playbooks, and reduce dwell times with automated detection and investigation. In an instance, an American multinational private equity and financial services firm, based in New York City was able to process malware email alerts in about 40 seconds versus 30 minutes or more.
"Our Adaptive Response framework is an initiative, which includes the collective efforts of 55 best-of-breed security vendors"
Knowledge is Power
Apart from a compelling solutions suite, what makes Splunk standout as the ultimate market leader is their additional efforts and investments. The company's Adaptive Response framework is one such initiative, which includes the collective efforts of 55 best-of-breed security vendors who are committed to providing a defense strategy for multi-layered, heterogeneous security architectures. Splunk showcases a rich partner network that comprises Atlassian, Cisco, and AWS that develop integrations with Splunk to bring a coordinated response to customer security architectures. Adaptive Response equips security hunters to less skilled staff to better handle threats by speeding the time to make decisions and optimize threat detection. Holding strong to the concept of knowledge sharing for optimum outcomes, the company also offers the Splunk Enterprise Security Content Update, a subscription service that empowers security teams to proactively stay current with the changing threat landscape and the defense tactics in order to quickly address those threats.
Security of the Future
The company propagates a culture of diversity and inclusion, a core driver behind their skyrocketing success. Splunk’s members come from varied backgrounds and experiences resulting in a truly high-performing and innovative team. They have partnered with the NeuroLeadership Institute to develop a robust unbiased training program for all recruiters to attract nothing but the best-suited workforce.
In a world simmering under security vulnerabilities, Splunk is inarguably the vanguard of next-gen security solutions. Last quarter the company's total revenue grew by 37 percent and Merritt remarks, “We reached the milestone of more than $1.2 billion in revenue by keeping a relentless focus on customer success. We will continue to invest in our customers by delivering great products.”
