Splunk Search

Using Standard Deviation to track SSH traffic

serwin
Explorer

I'm looking for a way to traffic the average ssh traffic between two IP addresses (source IP and destination IP) and hopefully find when a host is doing more SSH traffic than usual and alert on it. I've been looking through some of the standard deviation paperwork and I think I found a search I wanted to do but the standard deviation I get is zero; which doesn't make sense.

Here is what I've been playing around with.

sourcetype="cisco:asa" dest_port=22
| stats count by src_ip, dest_ip 
| stats mean(count) as mean, stdev(count) AS stdev by src_ip 
| eval stdv_percentage=(mean/stdev)*100
0 Karma

cmerriman
Super Champion

have you looked through this? http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/SplunkCloud/6.6.3/Search/Findingandremovingoutliers
you might want to use IQR, instead of standard dev, but it depends on the data and what works best.

try something like this:

sourcetype="cisco:asa" dest_port=22 
| stats count by src_ip, dest_ip 
| eventstats avg(count) as avg stdev(count) as stdev by src_ip
| eval lower_bound=avg-(stdev*2)
| eval upper_bound=avg+(stdev*2)
| eval isOutlier=if(count>upper_bound OR count<lower_bound,10,0)
0 Karma
Got questions? Get answers!

Join the Splunk Community Slack to learn, troubleshoot, and make connections with fellow Splunk practitioners in real time!

Meet up IRL or virtually!

Join Splunk User Groups to connect and learn in-person by region or remotely by topic or industry.

Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

May 2026 Splunk Expert Sessions: Security & Observability

Level Up Your Operations: May 2026 Splunk Expert Sessions Whether you are refining your security posture or ...

Network to App: Observability Unlocked [May & June Series]

In today’s digital landscape, your environment is no longer confined to the data center. It spans complex ...

SPL2 Deep Dives, AppDynamics Integrations, SAML Made Simple and Much More on Splunk ...

Splunk Lantern is Splunk’s customer success center that provides practical guidance from Splunk experts on key ...