SPLK-1001 Practice Question: Creating Reports, Dashboards and Visualizations
A security analyst wants to create a report that shows the count of failed login attempts per user over the last 24 hours, but only for users with more than 5 failures. Which Splunk command sequence should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse the `where` and `search` commands, thinking `search` is always required for filtering, or they forget to filter for `action=failure` before aggregating, leading to incorrect counts of all events instead of only failed logins.
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
✓
index=main action=failure | stats count by user | where count > 5
It first filters events to only failed login attempts using `index=main action=failure`, then uses `stats count by user` to count failures per user, and finally applies `where count > 5` to keep only users with more than 5 failures. This sequence ensures the count is calculated only on the relevant subset of events and the filter is applied after aggregation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
index=main action=failure | top limit=5 user
Why it's wrong here
This returns the top 5 users by count but does not enforce a minimum count of 5 failures.
- ✗
index=main | stats count by user | where count > 5
Why it's wrong here
This does not filter for failed actions; it counts all events per user.
- ✗
index=main action=failure | stats count by user | search count > 5
Why it's wrong here
Using 'search' after 'stats' is redundant and may cause syntax issues; 'where' is preferred.
- ✓
index=main action=failure | stats count by user | where count > 5
Why this is correct
Correctly filters failures, counts by user, and applies the threshold.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SPLK-1001 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-1001 exam.