Understanding what happened in a security incident and trying to analyze the root cause of an attack is like looking for a needle in a haystack. What would you do if you were faced with a security incident in your enterprise? Think about this for a moment. Do you have an efficient process to respond to the incident? And are you equipped with the right tools to mitigate a cyber attack and secure your network?
Sometimes despite our best efforts, security attacks still happen. I mean, if we had IT security perfectly figured out by now then you wouldn’t be hearing about cyber attacks in the news. By now you know how a SIEM tool can tighten your network security. But SIEM doesn’t end there. If something does go wrong in your network, a SIEM tool can aid in conducting a forensic investigation.
Become the Lord of the Logs with a SIEM solution
Events that occur in your network get logged. All the information you need is there in the log data collected by your SIEM tool. The log search engine of your SIEM tool empowers you to seize this information to get complete control over what is happening in your network. Any time you need details pertaining to an event occurring in your network, you can easily run a search query and extract the information you need in a matter of seconds.
You could search for something like:
Username = “abc” and Device = “cde” and Event ID = “123”
Then you can save your search results into a report and also set up an alert to be triggered the next time the same set of events occur in your network.
So, in the event of a forensic investigation, say an IP address breached your network, you can get a clear picture of what happened by searching through the log data of the devices involved in the breach. This of course could include your firewall and IDS/IPS logs in addition to your web server logs. Then you‘ll be able to analyze the attack, such as where else the IP address hit your network, and get all the details you need in order to furnish a detailed forensic report. And you can also assess the attack and get started on damage control. The log search engine truly makes you the Lord of the Logs. One SIEM solution to rule them all, right?
But as you know, massive volumes of logs are generated each day. It’s impossible to store all those logs in your database, as it will not only create a space management issue, but it can also affect the performance of your SIEM tool.
Archive, reload, investigate, and stay compliant
That’s where archiving comes in. Your SIEM tool should periodically archive your log data for 3 reasons:
1. Reducing the hard disk space used, of course.
2. Conducting a forensic investigation. Which, as talked about above, all you need to do is reload the archived log data back into your database and start searching.
3. Meeting stringent compliance mandates that require you to archive collected log data for a certain amount of time.
As this blog series has shown, a SIEM tool is the ideal solution for your security operations center. But wait, we aren’t done yet. A SIEM tool can do even more for you!
Streamlining incident response with SIEM
As administrators, you know the value of streamlining your incident management process. It’s all about tickets. A SIEM tool can not only help you detect and mitigate threats, but also help you respond to an alert.
You can reduce your incident response time by automating ticket assignment. Assign tickets to administrators as soon as an alert is triggered so they can take action in resolving the incident right away and you can track the entire resolution process. We allow you to do this in Log360, either within the product or with an external help desk tool—such as ServiceDesk Plus or ServiceNow.
And that is why a SIEM tool is the ideal solution for your security operations center. We’ve tried to cover the fundamental concepts about log management and SIEM in this blog series. But as you probably guessed, it‘s not that simple.
Fear not— Log360, our comprehensive (and affordable) SIEM tool, can audit and secure your network, Active Directory, and public cloud. Of course, you only have to pay for the log sources you need to manage. Learn more about Log360 here and write to our support team at log360-support@manageengine.com for any product questions.
In case you missed the first three installations of the blog series, here is part 1, part 2, and part 3.
Also, be sure to register for our upcoming webinars on SIEM:
- Leveraging your network’s security stack with an SIEM solution in place
- Staying on top of security threats and mitigating attacks with SIEM
- Exercising advanced features and strategies involved in effective configuration of Log360
