SPLK-1002 Advanced Visualization and Lookups Practice Question
A security analyst creates a timechart of login failures by source IP. The chart shows expected spikes, but the top 5 IPs account for <10% of all failures. The analyst suspects a DDoS attack using spoofed IPs. Which visualization type would BEST highlight the distribution of failures across all IPs?
⚠ Common exam trap
Splunk often tests the misconception that a pie chart is always the best for showing proportions, but the trap here is that a pie chart fails when there are many small slices, making it impossible to discern the distribution of failures across all IPs in a highly distributed attack.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Treemap
A treemap is the best choice because it uses nested rectangles to represent the proportional contribution of each source IP to the total login failures, making it easy to visually identify the distribution across all IPs, even when no single IP dominates. Unlike other chart types, a treemap can efficiently display hundreds of IPs without cluttering the view, which is critical when the top 5 IPs account for less than 10% of failures, indicating a highly distributed attack pattern.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Pie chart
Why it's wrong here
Pie charts are ineffective with many small slices.
- ✓
Treemap
Why this is correct
Treemaps effectively show proportions of many categories.
- ✗
Scatter plot
Why it's wrong here
Scatter plots show correlation, not distribution.
- ✗
Stacked column chart
Why it's wrong here
Stacked columns are for part-to-whole over time.
Go deeper
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SPLK-1002 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Splunk certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SPLK-1002 exam.