Security information and event management (SIEM) software gives enterprise security professionals both insight into and a track record of the activities within their IT environment.
How SIEM works.
SIEM software collects and aggregates log data generated throughout the organization’s technology infrastructure, from host systems and applications to network and security devices such as firewalls and antivirus filters.
The software then identifies and categorizes incidents and events, as well as analyzes them. The software delivers on two main objectives, which are to provide reports on security-related incidents and events, such as successful and failed logins, malware activity and other possible malicious activities and send alerts if analysis shows that an activity runs against predetermined rulesets and thus indicates a potential security issue.
SIEM features.
Most SIEM’s have a variety of features and functionality including:
- Basic security monitoring – The basic collection, normalization, correlation, and analysis of logs. This is the fundamental responsibility of a SIEM.
- Security incident detection – The second basic function of a SIEM is to alert security teams to anomalies or policy violations in an automated way with clear information.
- Advanced threat detection – SIEM’s integrate intelligence feeds that provide data on current threats that SIEM’s use to identify threats.
- – SIEM’s can be tuned to alert security analysts when policies have Notifications and alerts been violated or threats have been identified.
- Forensics & incident response – SIEM’s have the ability to store logs so that when a breach or incident occurs, IR teams and digital forensic investigators have the ability to perform root cause analysis.
- Compliance information – SIEM’s are increasingly being used to demonstrate compliance by providing auditing and reporting concerning log-in data, user information, IP address information, and data flow.
