Dt Sec Insights

Security Insights Skill

Query and analyze Dynatrace security data in security.events using DQL. Events

come from Dynatrace-native sources (RVA, RAP, Automated Detections, SPM) or

external products ingested via integrations (AWS Security Hub, Amazon

GuardDuty, GitHub Advanced Security, Snyk, Qualys, Tenable, and more).

What This Skill Covers

• Vulnerability management — open CVEs on running code from DT-native RVA

(risk-ranked with Dynatrace Security Score and the four-dimension runtime

assessment: vulnerable-function-in-use, public network exposure, reachable

data assets, public exploit available) plus external SCA / SAST / image scanners.

• Compliance posture — DT-native KSPM (Kubernetes-only: CIS, DORA, NIST,

STIG) plus CSPM/VSPM and external compliance/posture providers.

• Runtime attacks and threats — DT-native detections (RAP runtime attacks,

Automated Detections rules) plus external detection providers.

• Threat intelligence — external threat-intelligence reports (AlienVault OTX

pulses, CrowdStrike Falcon Intelligence) with actor / campaign / targeting context

and indicators of compromise (IOCs); correlate reported IOCs / CVEs / techniques

against your monitored environment. **These are threat intel about the wild — not

findings on your entities — and are queried separately.**

• Scan coverage analysis — covered vs. not-covered k8s workloads/hosts/processes, by Dynatrace

scanning feature (Library Vulnerability Analytics, `Operating System

Vulnerability Analytics, Code-level Vulnerability Analytics`) or by external

product.

• Entity enrichment — map external findings to Dynatrace runtime entities

(hosts, K8s workloads, cloud resources) via Smartscape.

• Dashboards / KPIs — tiles, top-N tables, trend charts, coverage donuts.

When to Use This Skill

✅ Must-first routing rule: identify user intent first, then load the matching primary reference from Quick Start: Find Your Use Case before generating DQL.

Identify the intent, then load the matching reference before writing DQL.

Cross-cutting (any / all finding types)

| Intent / example | Reference | Pattern |

|---|---|---|

| Security posture / overview across all products (incl. DT-native) | all-security-events.md § Broad-Question Query Decomposition | 3-stream decomposition (external+detections 24h / RVA 30m / KSPM 1h), merged; lead the count summary with KSPM compliance — CIS first (other standards + RVA + detections beneath) → compliance.md § CIS-Primary Standard Summary |

| Findings on a specific entity — direct or related (blast radius) | dt-sec-contextualization entity-enrichment.md · all-security-events.md | Broad entity-security questions must decompose: external *_FINDING by dt.smartscape_source.id / dt.entity.* / k8s.* (24h) + DT RVA entity scope (30m) + DT SPM entity scope (1h) |

| Findings from a specific provider | all-security-events.md § Scoping to a Specific Provider | contains(lower(event.provider \| product.vendor), "<p>") |

| Which third-party / external tools are sending data (DT-native excluded) | all-security-events.md § Which external integrations are active | external-only enumeration (single query) |

| Which security products are integrated? / what security data do we have? (default: include DT-native RVA + KSPM) | all-security-events.md § Broad-Question Query Decomposition | 3-stream decomposition; never a single wide security.events scan |

| Which products cover a specific entity | dt-sec-contextualization correlation-and-coverage.md · all-security-events.md | summarize by product.*; findings-vs-scans split |

> Routing tie-breaker: an unqualified "which security products are integrated? / are we covered? / what do we have?" defaults to the DT-inclusive 3-stream decomposition (it *must* query DT vulnerabilities and compliance). Take the external-only single query only when the user explicitly scopes to external / third-party tools ("which external tools are sending us data?").

Vulnerabilities (CVE management)

| Intent / example | Reference | Pattern |

|---|---|---|

| Counts / severity ("how many critical?", by risk + mute status) | vulnerabilities-dynatrace.md | RVA snapshot Steps 1–3 |

| Most vulnerable components / hosts / workloads (rankings) | vulnerabilities-entities.md | Steps 1–3 + expand typed related_entities.<group>.ids → smartscapeNodes lookup on id_classic — ⚠ k8s.*/dt.entity.* are null on RVA events |

| CVE / library lookup; "am I vulnerable to log4shell?" | vulnerabilities-dynatrace.md § Entity Scoping | Step 2 CVE/component filter; scope RVA to a known entity |

| Blast radius — which entities are affected by CVE X | vulnerabilities-entities.md | related_entities.* indirect-relation expand |

| Lifecycle — new / resolved / open-duration / MTTR | vulnerabilities-dynatrace.md | post-derive resolution.change_date; MTTR via change-events-only snippet (§ Resolution time) |

| Runtime advanced — function-in-use, exposure, exploit, data-assets | vulnerabilities-dynatrace.md | Davis-assessment fieldsAdd (Step 3) |

| External scanner vulns — containers / artifacts / components | vulnerabilities-external.md | VULNERABILITY_FINDING + external routing |

| Verify external vulnerability findings with RVA | vulnerabilities-external.md § Verify external vulnerability findings with RVA · dt-sec-contextualization entity-enrichment.md | First match the same vulnerability by vulnerability.references.cve; then prove runtime relatedness via direct dt.smartscape* IDs, container-image digest → running CONTAINER, or host host.ip → Smartscape HOST |

| "Newly reported this period and not in the previous period" (external) | vulnerabilities-external.md · common-patterns.md § 18 | prior-period anti-join (isNull(right.*)) — a finding.time.created filter is NOT equivalent |

| AI/LLM/GenAI workload vulnerabilities; "which AI services have vulnerabilities?" | vulnerabilities-dynatrace-advanced.md § AI-workload vulnerabilities | DT findings + GENAI scope (30m, dedup finding.id) |

| New AI-workload vulnerabilities this period | vulnerabilities-dynatrace-advanced.md § UC-AI2 | prior-window anti-join on {genai_service.id, vulnerability.id} |

Detections (threats & attacks)

| Intent / example | Reference | Pattern |

|---|---|---|

| Severity / time-window overview (DT + external) | detections.md · all-security-events.md | DETECTION_FINDING summary; default unqualified timeframe is 2h, widen to 24h only if empty |

| By attack type (SQL injection, crypto-mining, …) | detections.md | finding.type substring match |

| Attacker IPs / campaigns | detections.md | expand actor.ips + ip() |

| MITRE technique / sub-technique | detections.md | threat.attack.* arrays |

| RAP-only / Automated-Detections-only | detections.md § Provider Routing | product.name=="Runtime Application Protection" / event.provider=="Dynatrace Automated Detections" |

| Map detections to entities; repeated firing | detections.md · dt-sec-contextualization entity-enrichment.md | object.id grouping / enrichment |

| A specific external provider | all-security-events.md § Scoping to a Specific Provider | provider contains idiom |

> MITRE routing tie-breaker: a MITRE ATT&CK question routes by intent. "Which techniques did we detect / observe (on our entities)?" → detections.md (DETECTION_FINDING). "Which techniques are reported in threat intel / campaigns in the wild?" → threat-intelligence.md (THREAT_REPORT). Don't merge the two — a report tagged T1059 is not evidence T1059 occurred in your environment.

Threat intelligence (external reports & IOCs)

| Intent / example | Reference | Pattern |

|---|---|---|

| Show / list / count threat intelligence reports; reports by provider, actor, malware family, targeted country/industry, TLP, report type | threat-intelligence.md | THREAT_REPORT + dedup {threat.report.id} (SD guard first); never the four-key finding summarize |

| Top IOCs (CVEs / IPs / domains / URLs / emails / hashes) or MITRE techniques across reports | threat-intelligence.md § IOC extraction | dedup → expand observable → countDistinctExact(threat.report.id) |

| Am I exposed to report X / are these IOCs in my environment? (threat-exposure) | threat-intelligence.md § Threat-Exposure Correlation | join report IOCs/CVEs/techniques to VULNERABILITY_FINDING/RVA/DETECTION_FINDING; logs/spans IoC hunt → dt-sec-ioc-hunting |

Compliance (policy violations & benchmarks)

| Intent / example | Reference | Pattern |

|---|---|---|

| Pass-rate / posture (CIS / DORA / NIST / STIG) | compliance.md | Load compliance.md first — SPM Steps 1–2 + passRate |

| Critical misconfigurations | compliance.md | Load compliance.md first — Steps 1–2 + severity filter |

| Compliance / misconfigurations on a specific entity | compliance.md § Entity Security-Tab View (entity-scoped ${entityIdsOrNames} filter) · entity-enrichment.md | Mirror the entity Security tab (CIS default, failed-only): Table 1 DT CIS failed rules → Table 2 other DT standards (overlap caveat) → Table 3 external misconfigs. Broad posture/count questions instead use § CIS-Primary Standard Summary (scorecard). |

| Map control/standard → entities; per-namespace | compliance.md | entity scoping via compliance.standard.short_name / compliance.rule.id (⚠ never metadata_json) |

| Cloud / non-K8s (PCI/ISO/HIPAA/GDPR; AWS/Azure/GCP) | compliance.md § External | external taxonomy (compliance.standards/policy/control) |

| External violations grouped by standard / framework | compliance.md § External | compliance.standards is an array — expand it before summarize |

| Config drift / newly failing rules vs previous week (DT) | compliance.md § Week-over-Week Config Drift | prior-period anti-join — a wide fetch window is NOT a substitute |

| External compliance findings new this period, absent in prior | compliance.md § External | prior-period anti-join (same rule as drift) |

| KSPM (Kubernetes-only, DT-native) | compliance.md | product.name=="Security Posture Management" |

Coverage, enrichment & dashboards

| Intent / example | Reference | Pattern |

|---|---|---|

| Coverage / "covered vs not covered" / coverage gaps — hosts / processes / workloads | coverage-and-dashboards.md (counting logic) · dt-sec-contextualization correlation-and-coverage.md (match recipes) | ⚠ MUST start from smartscapeNodes + lookup scan events — summarizing scan events alone has no denominator and cannot answer a coverage question |

| Specific entity coverage by a DT capability (RVA, SPM, RAP, other DT-native) | coverage-and-dashboards.md | If no relevant findings or scan/completion events exist for that entity in the capability's operational window, answer not covered — capability is likely not enabled or not configured for that entity |

| Map external findings → workloads / hosts / cloud | dt-sec-contextualization entity-enrichment.md | 3-way match (K8s) / host-by-IP / Path-1 (cloud) — ⚠ always join to Smartscape; never group findings by raw object.name / k8s.namespace.name / host.name / cloud resource IDs alone |

| One-row-per-entity risk summary | dt-sec-contextualization entity-enrichment.md · coverage-and-dashboards.md | RVA + external merge |

| Dashboards — KPI tiles, top-N, trends, donuts | coverage-and-dashboards.md | makeTimeseries, summarization recipes |

❌ Don't use for:

• Dynatrace-detected problems → dt-obs-problems
• Application/infrastructure logs → dt-obs-logs
• Distributed tracing → dt-obs-tracing
• Service performance/RED metrics → dt-obs-services

Introduction to AppSec Data

All security events are stored in security.events and are categorized by event.type:

• RVA vulnerabilities — VULNERABILITY_STATE_REPORT_EVENT (15-minute snapshots per entity)
• KSPM compliance — COMPLIANCE_FINDING (per (rule, K8s object), joined with COMPLIANCE_SCAN_COMPLETED on scan.id for latest-scan dedup)
• External compliance (CSPM / VSPM / external posture tools) — COMPLIANCE_FINDING with the external taxonomy (compliance.standards / compliance.policy / compliance.control); compliance.rule.* typically null
• Detections — DETECTION_FINDING (RAP via product.name == "Runtime Application Protection"), SECURITY_EVENT (RAP events in some tenants), Automated Detections via event.provider == "Dynatrace Automated Detections", external security tools; plus DETECTION_EXECUTION_SUMMARY for per-rule-run audit (Automated Detections only)
• Scan coverage — VULNERABILITY_SCAN, COMPLIANCE_SCAN
• Threat intelligence — THREAT_REPORT (external TI platforms: AlienVault OTX pulses, CrowdStrike Falcon Intelligence). A separate class of data — not a finding: no finding.* / object.* / dt.security.risk.level, no affected entity, no scan cycle. Never folded into the cross-provider finding summary or the posture-overview decomposition — queried on its own via threat-intelligence.md. Dedup by threat.report.id.

Full taxonomy and field reference → data-model.md

Critical Constraint: Snapshot Windows

DT RVA and KSPM are snapshot tools, not event streams. The minimum

query window required for each pipeline:

• RVA: 30m fixed window (captures latest 15-min cycle); if a 30m snapshot is empty or clearly stale, use the controlled 24h latest-known-state fallback in vulnerabilities-dynatrace.md
• KSPM: 1h fixed window (needs latest COMPLIANCE_SCAN_COMPLETED marker for the inner-join)
• External findings (incl. CSPM/VSPM): 2h–24h+ (no snapshot semantics — these are one-shot events)

Widening these windows does NOT look back further — they only capture the latest report/scan cycle. For historical trends, use makeTimeseries over longer windows.

> DT-generated VULNERABILITY_FINDING vs. RVA state reports. Dynatrace-generated

> VULNERABILITY_FINDING queries (e.g. AI-workload scoping in

> vulnerabilities-dynatrace-advanced.md § AI-workload vulnerabilities)

> also use a 30m window, but dedup on finding.id because DT findings are

> re-emitted on every scan run (~15 min) — distinct from the RVA state-report

> 30m window, which dedups on {vulnerability.display_id, affected_entity.id}.

> Do not mix the two dedup grains.

Default Time Ranges in the Dynatrace Apps

The UI apps show pre-set defaults in their time picker. When a user

references "the app's view" without giving an explicit window, match

these to align query results with what the user sees in the UI:

| App | Default time picker |

|---|---|

| Vulnerabilities app | 30 minutes |

| Threats & Exploits app | 2 hours |

| Security Posture Management app | 2 hours |

These app defaults are *broader* than the minimum snapshot windows above

(e.g. SPM app = 2h vs. KSPM pipeline minimum = 1h). The minimum window is

what the inner-join / latest-cycle dedup needs to function; the app default

is what the user sees on first load. Use the minimum window when

generating canonical pipeline DQL; use the app default when the user

asks "what does the SPM app show me right now?" or builds a dashboard tile

intended to match the app view.

See vulnerabilities-dynatrace.md § Snapshot vs. History for details.

How This Skill Is Organized

The skill is split into two parts for scalability:

• SKILL.md (this file) — Entry point, quick lookup, routing to the right reference
• references/ — Detailed guidance by capability or domain:
• data-model.md — Reference for fetch security.events — event types, providers, fields, entity scoping.
• common-patterns.md — Cross-cutting patterns, common mistakes to avoid, and query troubleshooting reference.
• vulnerabilities-dynatrace.md — Dynatrace Runtime Vulnerability Analytics (RVA): snapshot pipeline, counts, lifecycle, runtime assessment, CLV, tracking, mute, and entity scoping.
• vulnerabilities-dynatrace-advanced.md — Advanced DT vulnerability guidance: best practices and AI-workload (VULNERABILITY_FINDING) query workflows.
• vulnerabilities-external.md — External SCA / SAST / image-scanner vulnerability findings (VULNERABILITY_FINDING).
• vulnerabilities-entities.md — DT RVA entity rankings: "most vulnerable hosts / K8s workloads / components" + CVE blast radius.
• compliance.md — Dynatrace Security Posture Management (SPM / XSPM) compliance findings and external provider compliance findings.
• detections.md — Runtime Application Protection (RAP) detections, Automated Detection rules, and external provider detections.
• threat-intelligence.md — External threat-intelligence reports (THREAT_REPORT): AlienVault OTX / CrowdStrike Falcon Intelligence, IOC extraction, and threat-exposure correlation. Not findings — queried separately.
• all-security-events.md — Cross-provider queries, double-counting guard, unified summaries
• coverage-and-dashboards.md — Entity coverage counting logic (smartscapeNodes denominator, covered vs. not-covered) and dashboard patterns (KPI tiles, top-N, trend charts, coverage donuts).
• entity-enrichment — Moved to dt-sec-contextualization references/entity-enrichment.md (3-way match / host-by-IP / cloud). Load dt-sec-contextualization for any entity-mapping question.

Universal Best Practices

• Always load dt-dql-essentials first — DQL syntax and function names differ from SQL. Confirm all functions in dt-dql-essentials before generating queries.
• Ground every query in the routed reference's canonical template — do not improvise DQL. Identify intent, load the matching reference (per *When to Use*), and build from its canonical pipeline / named building block. Do not invent field names, enum values, join syntax, or pipeline shape from SQL habits. Deviate from a template only with syntax explicitly shown in a skill example or validated in dt-dql-essentials. If no template covers the request, say so and adapt the closest one — never fabricate fields or values.
• No dt.system.bucket filters — security event data may live in any bucket; filtering by bucket risks hiding findings.
• Use the correct provenance field for the family — RVA uses event.provider == "Dynatrace", SPM/detections use product.vendor == "Dynatrace". See data-model.md § Provider Taxonomy.
• Always include an explicit from: clause — use the correct window for the query class:

| Query class | Default window | Notes |

|---|---|---|

| DT RVA snapshots | 30m fixed | Captures latest 15-min state-report cycle — do not widen |

| DT KSPM snapshots | 1h fixed | Aligned with scan-completion cycle inner-join — do not widen |

| RAP / external detection retrieval or current summary | 2h first attempt | Matches Threats & Exploits app default. Widen to 24h only if zero rows returned or if the user explicitly asks for a longer window (see detections.md § Widen-on-empty fallback) |

| Cross-provider summary (aggregated) | 24h | Summaries aggregate over time; start broad |

Omitting from: falls back to a default window that doesn't match snapshot semantics and produces drift between query runs. The 30m / 1h windows are *not* arbitrary — they're tied to the underlying RVA / SPM scan cadence. See common-patterns.md § 7 for the full window reference.

Decompose DT-inclusive broad / posture-overview questions ("which security products are integrated incl. Dynatrace-native?", posture overview, cross-category counts that include DT vulnerabilities/compliance) — never answer with one wide scan over all of security.events. Run three separate queries and merge: Stream A external + DT detections (24h, double-counting guard), Stream B DT RVA (30m), Stream C DT KSPM (1h). This keeps the high-cardinality snapshot streams in their tight windows and avoids double-counting. A narrower "which external integrations are sending data?" stays a single external-only query. See all-security-events.md § Broad-Question Query Decomposition.

• Preserve entity identifiers on raw listings (top / latest / list / show-me — no summarize) so users see which entity each finding is on. The namespaces split by family and are not interchangeable: cross-provider *_FINDING / scan events use the generic dt.smartscape* / dt.entity* / dt.source* fields; RVA state/change events leave those null and carry refs in affected_entity* / related_entities*. Not for pure count / pass-rate summaries. Field lists and wildcard reference → common-patterns.md § 17.
• Broad entity-security questions require the external stream too. For prompts like "security findings of this host / K8s node / workload / cluster", do not stop after DT RVA and SPM. Also run the external/cross-provider *_FINDING stream scoped with the wide entity OR chain (dt.smartscape_source.id, dt.entity.*, object.*, and relevant k8s.* fields) in 24h, then merge with RVA (30m) and SPM (1h). Treat dt.source_entity as a legacy/scan fallback, not a primary cross-provider scoping path. If the external branch returns 0 rows, report "no external findings found" with the scope used. Load dt-sec-contextualization → entity-enrichment.md for the Smartscape join. See also all-security-events.md.
• Always bound raw listing and top-N results. If the user asks for "top X", "last X", or "first X", end with | sort ... | limit X (after the ranking/sort). If the user asks to list/show findings but does not explicitly ask for all data and the output is not a summary (summarize / makeTimeseries), add | limit 50 by default. Do not run unbounded raw projections on security findings. Full rule and exceptions → common-patterns.md § 16.
• Preserve query shape — do not drop by: keys unless the user asks for coarser aggregation. The canonical cross-provider summarize always keys by {event.provider, product.name, event.type, dt.security.risk.level}. Dropping any of these silently merges rows from different providers, products, or finding types into a single count and will be penalized by evaluators. Do not replace the four-key grouping with a simpler by: {dt.security.risk.level} or by: {event.type} unless the user explicitly requests a coarser view. See common-patterns.md § 15.

10. Compliance status uses compliance.result.status.level (PASSED/FAILED/MANUAL/NOT_RELEVANT) — never event.status or "PASS"/"FAIL". Pass rate is computed on per-rule verdicts after the latest-scan dedup join on: {scan.id}. Field terminology, the dedup join, and the pass-rate rollup → compliance.md.

11. Count distinct identities, not rows, after expand / join / lookup that fan out arrays — use countDistinctExact(vulnerability.display_id) / countDistinctExact(finding.id), or dedup on identity + group key first. A plain count() is safe only when the grain entering the expand is already one row per counted item. Examples and the exception → common-patterns.md § Mistakes #55.

12. Interpret empty entity-coverage probes as not covered. When validating whether a specific entity is covered by a Dynatrace security capability (RVA, SPM/KSPM, RAP, or another DT-native capability), absence of the relevant findings and scan/completion events means the entity is not covered by that capability. State the likely cause: the capability is not enabled, or it is not configured / deployed to monitor that entity. Do not soften this into "no findings" when the user asked about coverage. Counting logic → coverage-and-dashboards.md; match recipes → dt-sec-contextualization correlation-and-coverage.md.

13. Report empty results truthfully — never fabricate numbers. 0 rows means "no matching data," stated with the scope and filters used; never invent plausible values. Before relaxing a filter, apply the family's documented recovery (RVA 30m→24h latest-known-state, detections 2h→24h widen, RVA filters on null k8s.*/dt.entity.*/dt.smartscape* → pivot to affected_entity.*/related_entities.*) and say so explicitly if you adapt. Recovery details → vulnerabilities-dynatrace.md / detections.md.

For domain-specific best practices and the full diagnostic catalog, see the references listed in the "How This Skill Is Organized" section above.

External Documentation

• https://docs.dynatrace.com/docs/secure/threat-observability/concepts
• https://docs.dynatrace.com/docs/semantic-dictionary/model/security-events
• https://docs.dynatrace.com/docs/semantic-dictionary/fields

Related Skills

• dt-dql-essentials — Load first. Core DQL syntax, command reference, function catalog, Smartscape patterns.
• dt-sec-contextualization — Load for any entity-mapping question: 3-way match (K8s workload), host-by-IP, cloud Path 1, pod→node topology, cross-evidence correlation, coverage match recipes.
• dt-obs-kubernetes — K8s topology; useful for security findings scoped to clusters / workloads
• dt-obs-hosts — Host inventory, process-level context; useful when a finding's affected entity is a HOST or PROCESS_GROUP
• dt-obs-services — Service-scoped queries; useful for UC-G3 "findings affecting <service-name>" and tracing from a vulnerable service to RED metrics
• dt-obs-aws / dt-obs-azure / dt-obs-gcp — Cloud Smartscape; useful for enriching external cloud-security findings against the provider's resource topology, and for hyperscaler-specific provider field handling (cloud resource IDs, ARNs, account scoping)
• dt-obs-tracing — Drill from a vulnerable / attacked entity to representative request traces
• dt-obs-problems — Get affected/related entity IDs for a problem before querying security findings (UC-G5)