What is SIEM?

The average cost of a malware attack on a company is $2.4 million. Learn how to prevent it by implementing a SIEM security strategy.

SIEM is a complex idea to understand but will be invaluable to a business with digital data to protect. SIEM stands for security information and event management.

SIEM is a software product that has created a solution to cybersecurity issues and data breaches for businesses. The cost of a data breach has climbed to $4.24 million on average in the United States alone. 

SIEM software aggregates and analyzes data across your network to check for anomalies and vulnerabilities that could potentially lead to a data breach.

SIEM software will send alerts in real-time and define the threat level based on performance rules. SIEM combines security information management (SIM) with security event management (SEM) to create a comprehensive hybrid product that is used to protect against incoming security attacks with sophisticated AI technology.

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SIEM Statistics

To get a better understanding of why SIEM is so important, here are some valuable SIEM statistics to take into consideration:

• 60% of small businesses will have to close their doors due to the financial burden of a data breach.
• It can take as little as six months for a data breach to destroy a business entirely. 
• Businesses lose $4.7 million to cybersecurity issues annually.
• 34% of data breaches come from insider threats.
• 69% of data breaches come from an external source.
• IT security professionals spend approximately 25% of their time dealing with false positives when their energy could be used elsewhere.
• 40% of IT security professionals say they cannot detect insider threats while they are moving data in and out.

These are only a few reasons why businesses should use SIEM technology. Whether your business is a large corporation or an SMB, SIEM will be beneficial in keeping your information safe.

SIEM itself does not protect your data, but it runs an analysis of all the data in your system to detect what kind of improvements can be made. It will also help your team stay on top of potential security threats and save you a lot of time and money in the process.

How Does SIEM Work?

SIEM security will help your business protect itself against all types of network issues such as patching software flaws or updating all existing applications. SIEM will gather data from all of your other protection programs such as antivirus and firewall systems to help improve cyber protection.

SIEM works by leveraging security logs and system logs that IT professionals can analyze. The security information and event management architecture and operational processes used will aggregate data to discover potential threats.

Adopting the SIEM framework gives your business a comprehensive data storage system to access and use to make improvements and an edge in the ongoing battle against cyber crime.

Implementing a proper SIEM solution will provide you with extra security to make the framework you already have better.

Data Storage

As businesses continue to grow in the digital space, more information is being stored in the cloud, especially in the new interconnected remote workforce. This new WFH model leaves the information unprotected and open to phishing attacks and other threats unless businesses implement a SIEM strategy.

Data leaks have been on the rise, and one of the biggest reasons is because data storage is not well protected.One of the most important things the SIEM framework can help you with is improving your data storage.

When new data storage locations are created, your IT security team must be informed immediately. Your team needs to know what to prioritize to keep data breaches from happening. SIEM security logs can help with this.

SIEM Policies

One of the great advantages about SIEM is that you can implement your own policies that pertain to your business needs. When implementing SIEM into your enterprise, your IT team will need to create SIEM policies that will protect your data and define your security framework.

SIEM policies include default rules, alerts, reports, and dashboards that can be tailored to fit the security needs of your business. They will have to adhere to SIEM compliance, and your SIEM Engineer will be able to assist in the creation.

Depending on the type of business you have, you may be required to adhere to other compliance policies such as HIPAA if the business involves recording patient medical data and protected health information (PHI).

Before implementing SIEM into your business, you should get a consultation to see which SIEM service is right for your business needs.

Data Collection in SIEM

SIEM collects and aggregates data throughout a company’s entire digital network. Data collection in SIEM involves gathering event and log data through all of the company’s digital platforms.

These can include in-house networks, applications, antivirus and firewall protection software, and everything in between.

The essential function of SIEM is to compile all of the data throughout a company’s infrastructure and put it into a comprehensive format for the IT security team to analyze.

SIEM collects data such as login attempts, successful or failed. It also collects malware activity and all other unusual activity that could be a potential security breach.

The Evolution of SIEM Software

SIEM technology has been in existence since the mid-2000s. How did SIEM evolve? Well, SIEM is a compilation of previous security information management tools. The first version of SIEM evolved from the log management system, policies and processes used to deal with large volumes of data logs in an infrastructure.

The term SIEM was coined in the 2005 Gartner report. The Gartner SIEM definition states that SIEM “caters to customers’ need to collect security event logs and telemetry in real-time for threat detection and compliance use cases, analyze telemetry in real-time and over-time to detect attacks and other activities of interest, investigate incidents to determine their potential severity and impact on a business.”

This report for SIEM explained it as an information data collection system based on security information management tools (SIM) and security event management systems (SEM) combining them into one program.

The security analytics Gartner magic quadrant is a report that comes out every 1-2 years that shows the state of the SIEM market and vendors. It’s a very useful tool for those using SIEM, or are looking to implement it in their enterprise.

The Gartner report is more of a prediction. It predicts the trajectory of the market and what will happen with SIEM based on SIEM statistics and analytics.

If you are using SIEM in your business, the Gartner report is essential to pay attention to so you are as up-to-date as possible on current SIEM trends.

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Benefits of SIEM

There are many benefits that come with implementing a SIEM strategy as part of your security arsenal. Using SIEM will save your IT department a lot of time when it comes to pinpointing cybersecurity threats.

SIEM can also speed up the threat detection process, which can save security analysts over $1.2 million annually investigating false alerts.

SIEM log management gives organizations a simple and concise way to analyze digital information within the company network to ensure there are no threats that can lead to security breaches. SIEM can be used for many different types of cybersecurity cases such as audits, compliance reporting, network issues, and security breaches. 

Without SIEM, this information is stored in separate areas in your network and cannot be accessed all at once, making it more difficult for your IT team to go through and check for issues.

Not to mention other issues plaguing IT and analysts such as alert fatigue and tool sprawl. Another one of the SIEM benefits is that it will provide your IT security team with SIEM alerts in real-time to notify them of potential threats of a data breach.

The products are customizable, and your team can develop a SIEM strategy that’s tailored to protect your data specifically.

Threat Hunting and Detection

SIEM alerts are sent with context and data for potential threats. Using SIEM gives you total visibility to display all of the potential issues within your data storage and infrastructure. SIEM will also detect past threats, identify new threats, and help you improve threat incident report time.

Reduced Response Time

Using a SIEM strategy will save your business a lot of time and money. With SIEM, your IT team will be able to detect a potential security breach before it even starts.

This will reduce or eliminate the financial blow of the data breach. It will also save you from any damage to your business and IT infrastructure which can take up to 228 days on average according to a recent IBM report. 

Having the ability to detect a security breach or event before it even starts can keep them from happening at all. SIEM can also analyze past breaches and potential issues to help you keep them from occurring again.

Security Staffing

The IT team at your business should have specific employees designated for IT security. Those employees will be in charge of ensuring that your business adheres to SIEM and all other security compliances. 

If you have an IT team already, they should be familiar with SIEM. You will need to have a SIEM Engineer on staff that knows what they’re doing to keep things running smoothly.

SIEM Compliance for IT

Every business is responsible for adhering to SIEM compliance requirements. Typically, this refers to IT compliance which means detecting and reporting threats recorded in a data log.

It’s important to research regulations specific to your particular business and adhere to them. You will need to log all relevant events and figure out what events are considered a threat to your business, as well as a complete detailed process of how to handle security events. Along with your own security standards, there are other compliances a business must take into account. 

One such compliance is the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard or PCI DSS compliance. PCI DSS is a compilation of security standards for companies working with credit card information. To see if your business adheres to PCI DSS compliance, you can take the self-assessment questionnaire to see if you’re up to date with all security preventive measures.

Not only is IT and PCI DSS compliance important for SIEM compliance, but there are also other institutions that require compliance. For example, SIEM can assist with Health Insurance and Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance. HIPAA compliance is essential for all medical businesses to protect confidential patient health information (PHI). 

A breach of HIPAA compliance is dangerous for your business and your patients. It could lead to the leaking of personal information, payment information, and medical records. SIEM will help ensure that HIPAA compliance requirements are met. The average cost of a healthcare data breach is $9.42 million per incident, the most out of all industries for data breaches.

Along with HIPAA, all electronic medical data must comply with HITRUST. HITRUST is a data framework that focuses on medical businesses and hospitals. HIPAA compliance can be hard to understand, and HITRUST is a third party that helps to make it easier for businesses to comply.

The Internal Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a global institution that manages standards for different industries. Your business will need to follow ISO 27001 standards. It is a framework built for information security management. ISO includes policies for how data is controlled and used in a business.

SOC 2 Type 2 is a report that shows how a company is protecting their customer’s data and how well they are doing so. This report is typically used by businesses that store information in virtual data clouds. It assists businesses using third party technology to look out for risks.

SIEM Management Best Practices

• Develop a SIEM Strategy – Start by defining key objectives and SIEM deployment during the initial or planning phase. Identify any key vulnerabilities that need to be immediately addressed. Once you have these SIEM objectives mapped out, you can then start small and test out a pilot run before implementing a more comprehensive SIEM deployment plan.  
• Consider Your Compliance Requirements – Compliance is a critical component of building a successful and effective SIEM game plan. Consider which compliance regulations your organization might need, such as HIPAA, HITRUST, GDPR, and ISO 27001 among others. Being fully compliant with the relevant regulations can help save your organization hundreds of thousands of dollars if not more in potential penalties down the road. 
• Collect Log Data – Data will tell you everything you need to know about your current security posture. Collecting log data can help uncover security flaws that could be opening the door to potential attacks. Analyzing user privilege access, application errors or small details in your terms and conditions can help detect anomalies and reduce the attack surface.   

Have a Threat Response Plan – Choose a SIEM solution that meets your unique requirements and assign the relevant roles to your IT department. Security analysts and MSP’s must be briefed before you implement a final SIEM framework. Guidelines should be established with an effective incident response plan to remove any potential threats and provide a playbook for your security team to follow.

What is The Role of a SIEM Engineer?

The SIEM Engineer will play a major role in an IT security team. They will be the leader that manages SIEM reports and puts together a well-defined blueprint strategy from the beginning.

The engineer is in charge of implementing SIEM and ensuring all parts are functioning properly. They will review all reports and identify any breaches or areas that need to be addressed in the bigger picture. 

There is probably someone on your current IT team that will be able to assume the role of SIEM Engineer. If not, you will need to hire one. SIEM will not function properly without the assistance of experienced professionals who understand the framework.

SIEM vs Log Management: Key Differences

SIEM and log management solutions may seem similar, but the only thing they have in common is the fact that they both revolve around data logs.

Logs are essentially all of the data records a company keeps. They can tell you a lot about a business. Networks are always collecting data and putting it into logs, and your IT team can use log management tools to go through it. 

The problem is most businesses have so much data that it can take a long time to go through the logs. In fact, the average company manages 162.9TB of data with enterprises having over 347.56TB to analyze.

That’s a lot of data. With centralized log management, the data is still not automated. This means your team will still have to sift through it for information. It takes a lot of time and can be costly.

SIEM also utilizes data logs, but in a more efficient manner. It is also important to note that log management tools are solely to collect data, and SIEM uses the logs to find ways to improve cybersecurity. SIEM is much simpler to use and more cost-effective than relying on just logs.

What is The Difference Between SIEM and SOC?

SIEM and Security Operations Center (SOC) are both important forms of technology in cybersecurity. SIEM utilizes data logs to find threats, while SOC is in charge of resolving the threats.

The two go hand in hand and cannot function without the other. SIEM and the SOC work together to ensure that the alerts are not false positives, and if they aren’t the SOC will get to work resolving the issue.

Security Intelligence and Analytics: Bringing All The Data Together

So, what is all this log data showing the IT team through SIEM analysis?

The main things SIEM is looking for are data security events. By using log data management, the SIEM engineer can work on network anomaly detection.

Network anomaly detection can spot the tiniest of problems that can carry enormous financial consequences. Having all of your log data in one spot makes it easier for your IT security team to compare and contrast large amounts of data.

SIEM Cloud Vendors

Using SIEM Cloud Vendors gives IT teams a more convenient way to manage cybersecurity threats. This type of SIEM system has become very popular as businesses have already made the shift in embracing the WHF model.

The cloud gives IT security professionals the ability to collect data from anywhere in your network that is connected to your cloud. Perimeter 81 provides seamless Splunk Cloud configuration to index and capture data, diagnose problems, and provide intelligence reporting using advanced machine data for identifying data patterns.

Evaluating SIEM Tools: What to Look For

There are many options to choose from when it comes to SIEM tools, and you will need to assess your business to see which is right for you by doing a log management software comparison.

Take some time to look at your business and focus on your most important needs.

Azure Sentinel

Azure Sentinel is a cloud-native SIEM and SOAR (Security Orchestration Automated Response) solution that is known for its scalability and ease of use. It enables you to reduce infrastructure costs by automatically scaling resources and only paying for what you use. Perimeter 81 customers will be able to enjoy smart security analytics capabilities and live threat intelligence across their networks and applications.

Amazon S3

The popular Amazon Simple Storage Service (abbreviated Amazon S3) helps organizations store their network objects and scale easily as they expand.

Offering superior data availability, security, and performance than other leading solutions, organizations around the world rely on S3 to store, manage access to, and protect the enormous amount of data generated by their operations.

Thanks to Perimeter 81 integration with Amazon S3, you will be able to forward data captured on your networks to your Amazon S3 bucket and improve the access controls in pursuit of specific business and compliance goals.

Splunk SIEM

Splunk is a SIEM system with advanced threat detection features. The Splunk SIEM program is used to monitor and manage large amounts of data. Basically, it compiles all of your data into a nice clean product that you can search through to find reports and the information you’re looking for. 

Perimeter 81 integration with Splunk helps organizations complement their complete network visibility, with searchable network-wide data on security events and in-depth, sophisticated analysis of user activity to investigate security threats.

LogRhythm

LogRhythm is another program that uses SIEM and log management to help keep your business safe. LogRhythm keeps up to date to ensure you’re getting the best protection against security threats.

LogRhythm is good for smaller businesses as it is a one-stop shop for SIEM, log management, and other data analytics such as forensics.

RSA NetWitness SIEM

RSA NetWitness Platform is primarily used for threat detection. The RSA enVision SIEM Tool allows users to view events in real-time and sends SIEM alerts while combining network and endpoint data with business insights.

The RSA NetWitness helps deliver visibility across the enterprise to limit false positives and better aggregate data. It leverages machine learning to identify key threats and anomalous behaviors.

Exabeam SIEM Technology

Exabeam SIEM Technology is another great threat detection product. It offers multiple SIEM capabilities. Exabeam offers a feature called the Data Lake, which is their log management system.

This product is good for enterprises with lots of digital data storage that needs to be logged. Exabeam Fusion detects credential-based attacks and provides behavioral analytics to investigate threats and response outcomes.

Exabeam XDR (extended detection and response) mitigates threats from the start of the response lifecycle and is a valuable asset for DevSecOps teams.  

SolarWinds SIEM Security

SolarWinds SIEM Security Event Manager is a log and event manager SIEM product. This SIEM product has a multitude of log management features and is one of the most competitive tools on the market right now.

SolarWinds SIEM security would be good for a business that has dealt with threats in the past. The SolarWinds SIEM Security Event Manager specializes in unified threat management (UTM) solutions and in log forwarding, which aggregates and analyzes logs from across your IT infrastructure.

IBM QRadar SIEM

The IBM QRadar SIEM is a versatile product that can be used as hardware, software, or virtually in the cloud. This SIEM caters to your needs in any way with so many options to use it. 

This product also gives real-time threat detection along with many other features. Great for a large business with lots of sensitive information that needs to be protected. Also good for businesses working remotely, since the cloud feature is available.

OSSEC Open Source SIEM Technology

OSSEC stands for Open Source Host-based Intrusion Detection System. It performs log analysis, real-time alerting, and active response. The OSSEC architecture consists of agents, Syslog (System Logging Protocol), databases, and agentless devices from a central monitoring manager. OSSEC can also receive and analyze Syslog events from a large variety of firewalls, switches, and routers. 

OSSEC also provides a simplified centralized management server to manage policies across multiple operating systems and file integrity checking to prevent attacks on networks. This means that any mistake performed by an employee, whether accidental or intentional will be immediately alerted to the IT manager or SIEM engineer in charge.

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Seamless SIEM Integration with Perimeter 81’s Cloud VPN

With the cost of ransomware topping just north of $20 billion as of 2021, SIEM analysts will be losing sleep without a SIEM security solution plan in place. Having a secured Cloud VPN set up can help alleviate a lot of the stress. In fact, here are 10 Reasons Why a Cloud VPN is the Secret Ingredient for Your Company’s Success.

Perimeter 81’s Cloud VPN also integrates with Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon S3 to help SIEM analysts receive security alerts and a complete holistic SIEM cybersecurity view of events generated by applications and other parts of their networks in real-time. 

Perimeter 81’s Cloud VPN solution security provides organizations of all sectors and sizes with cybersecurity event management and secured remote access to combat malicious attacks and prevent confidential resources from falling into the wrong hands.

Don’t take any chances with your data and network security. Learn how Perimeter 81’s Cloud VPN can integrate with your SIEM solution.

Implement SIEM Security to your Cloud Providers