Unfold The Tale Of Security Information And Event Management (SIEM) Software

Let's start our story with a game - two truths and one lie:
 

• On average, hackers try to attack and breach the data security measures of organizations every 39 seconds.

• A Security Information And Event Management (SIEM) Software doesn't provide a comprehensive view of a company's information security directives.

• In case of an unauthorized access attempt, it is necessary to inform authorities immediately to contain that data breach.

 
Any guesses which one is the lie?

Obviously, it's option number 2, fellows! That was clearly a segue to a detailed article about Security Information And Event Management Software. Mind you; it's pronounced "sim" with a silent 'e' not "siyem," as Jane convinced you is the correct pronunciation.

Imagine SIEM as a wide lens that can give you a bird's eye view of a company's entire information security directives. While the job description of a SIEM solution includes collecting event data from multiple sources, including network devices, servers, domain controllers and more, it also investigates the accumulated data to find trends. Additionally, it exposes any irregular malicious activity or any possibilities of a cyberattack.

In this guide, we will walk you through what SIEM is, key characteristics of the software, how it works, what benefits SIEM system can offer you, where it came from and where it is headed.

Zip Zip, let's get to it.
 

First Things First, What Is SIEM Software?

Security Information and Event Management Software, in all its glory, is a security information system that learns from security alerts and the data that it collates from all connected devices including network devices, servers, domain controllers and more, in real-time.

Companies treat SIEM as the encyclopedia and a watchdog of their data security efforts. It identifies all security threats and analyzes all the data, logs all incident response, responds and alerts authorities about incidents of any data breach and creates compliance reports.

Like any good data analyst but 10x faster, managed SIEM operates on the rules of correlation and uses different statistical tactics that allow the software to transform the random events and log entries into helpful and action-oriented information.

The main characteristics of a SIEM security solution include:
 

• Viewing the organization's entire security system in real-time

• Collating security alert data from the various sources

• Using the Boolean logic rules (data can be either true or false) to make sense of the raw data

• Blasting high alert signals in case of any security breach in real-time

Oh my! Tell me more, where did it come from?
 

Evolution Of SIEM

Once upon a time, there were two friends gifted with superpowers. The first one was called SIM short for Security Information Management; with its power, SIM could store, analyze and generate the security analytics log report and security alert reports at a massive level. The other friend was SEM or Security Event Management tool and its capabilities included observing large sums of data and finding a correlation between event data. The two friends, SIM and SEM eventually fell in love and decided to start a family.

It was prophesied that their child will combine both their powers and create the ultimate security tool to give the king of the organization a holistic view of all the security data. The universe conspired and that is how the SIEM software was born.

Best of both worlds, SIEM now uses its power as a single source of truth, that the IT security team of
the kingdom can rely on to identify potential cyber-attack across their network. It can do this by inspecting an obnoxious amount of security data and highlighting the cyber security alerts.

How Does SIEM Software Do That?

There are three main functionalities of SIEM Software for an organization.
 

• Documenting and analysing security incident from the previous logs

• Alerting the right people in the organization if the data set is not meeting the guidelines set based on the previous analysis, indicating a security breach

• Ensuring that the company meets with necessary compliance regulations (more on that later)

 
Removing all the fancy labels, SIEM tool for aggregates data by analyzing it and creating intelligible reports based on the analysis. This consumable data is what allows the IT security team at your organization to research the security breaches in detail. 

Why Is SIEM Important Today And What Are Its Benefits?

Because the night is dark and full of terrors! Just kidding!

Can you imagine how difficult, expensive, time-consuming and almost humanly impossible it is to collect and manage so much data? We literally can't!

Although, the most important reason to have a SIEM system is the in-depth analysis it offers that cover the essential aspects of a company's security plans, that are:
 

• Identifying incident 

• Adhering to regulatory compliance rules 

Efficiently handling incidents with the help of real-time monitoring and customized alerts

Talking about the benefits, with a holistic view of the company's entire security system in real-time, SIEM can omit all your blind spots. The multiple defence systems provided with SIEM, such as Firewalls, antivirus, Endpoint Security, will boost your efficiency by reducing false positives. Most importantly, SIEM can detect the threats and spot the patterns before becoming a nuisance, awarding more time for your team to respond to threats.

Now that you know the importance of SIEM Software, let's give it a chance to prove its mettle.
 

The Essential Capabilities Of SIEM Software

Some of the most important elements of SIEM include:
 

•  Data Aggregation

  As we said before, SIEM is a tool to collect security data from your organization's entire network security tool, servers, databases and all the company's software and applications. It also includes functionalities like firewalls, anti-virus, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and more.

• Threat Intelligence Feeds

  SIEM Software effectively merges the company's internal data with its own threat intelligence feed that contains information about all the weak spots and attack patterns. Like Sherlock Holmes, it then connects the dots between any security incident and the data surrounding it to find the cause of the incident.

•  Alerting

  Imagine a loud fire alarm but not so ominous. In the event of a security breach, the system immediately alerts the IT security teams of the intrusion by email, message or through the system dashboard.

• Compliance

  It automatically collects the compliance data, builds reports that show that the company is adhering to the security operations and governance guidelines. Additionally, it audits the process for different security standards, including HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), PCI/DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act), SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

As impressive as the capabilities of an SIEM Software maybe, some of you may be wondering, "will it be useful in the future?"
 

What Is The Future Of SIEM?

As more and more security breaches affect companies of all sizes, the need for advanced SIEM features has never been greater. SIEM experts expect more threats with the rise of cloud security management, mobile-first tools, the Internet of Things (IoT) and many additional technologies that the IT department can't always control.

Additionally, Cloud solutions and IoT can both generate enough data to fill up an entire football stadium (we are not sure if this is enough exaggeration or not). This will give rise to open ends and more opportunities for cyber goons to hack into and break the company system.

Keeping all this in mind, the future SIEM tools and systems will have to sprint to keep up with the massive demand to manage the influx of information.