John, SOC analyst wants to monitor the attempt of process creation activities from any of their Windows endpoints. Which of following Splunk query will help him to fetch related logs associated with process creation?

In Windows environments, Event ID 4688 is generated in the Security Log whenever a new process is created, provided that "Audit Process Creation" is enabled. A SOC analyst would query for this specific event code to monitor for potentially malicious or unauthorized software execution on endpoints. The Splunk query index=windows LogName=Security EventCode=4688 correctly targets these events. The additional NOT (AccountName=$) is a common filter to exclude processes created by system accounts, which often end with a dollar sign, helping to reduce noise.

A. EventCode=4678: This event ID corresponds to "A privileged service was called," which is a different activity from process creation.
C. EventCode=3688: This event ID is related to Schannel (TLS/SSL) errors and is not associated with process creation events.
D. EventCode=5688: This is not a standard, documented Windows Security Event ID for process creation.

1. Microsoft Corporation. (2023, February 23). 4688(S): A new process has been created. Windows Security Auditing Documentation. Retrieved from Microsoft Learn. Section: "Event Details" and "Security Monitoring Recommendations."

2. Splunk Inc. (2022). Splunk Security Essentials. Splunk Documentation. The "Process Creation with Command Line" detection search uses EventCode 4688 as the primary indicator for Windows process creation.

3. MITRE. Command and Scripting Interpreter. MITRE ATT&CK Framework, T1059. The "Procedure Examples" and "Detection" sections frequently reference monitoring process creation events like Windows Event ID 4688.