The global Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) market is expected to reach USD 5.5 billion by 2025 (Markets and Markets, 2020). So why are companies investing in SIEM?
Cyberattacks are pervasive and increasingly sophisticated, which means security risks are rapidly growing. As a result, organizations are implementing SIEM solutions to secure their applications and networks.
SIEM solutions streamline security, warn IT teams of threats, and prevent alert fatigue. In this blog, we explore how SIEM software works and how it can benefit security operation center (SOC) analysts.
How SIEMs Work
SIEM software collects events and data from an organization’s applications and devices, analyze them, and classify them into different categories such as failed login, malware activities, exploit attempts, and more. SIEMs identify potential threats by assessing data patterns and providing in-depth security event analysis. When the software detects suspicious activities, it generates security alerts to flag security teams.
Essentially, SIEMs implement a security log management system that allows real-time monitoring of incidents and generates security alerts into one centralized location, which enables security analysts and teams to efficiently analyze data. They also provide visibility into an organization’s entire infrastructure, making the security posture more proactive rather than reactive.
There are various SIEM tools in the market that provide real-time analysis of security alerts and help anticipate cyberattacks. These are some of the most reputable SIEMs:
- SolarWinds strengthens an organization’s security posture by providing automated threat detection and incident response. It provides an easy-to-use dashboard that visualizes event data for analysis and pattern recognition. SolarWinds also has customizable reporting templates so users can easily demonstrate compliance to standards like ISO 27001 and SOX.
- Log360 helps organizations detect potential threats and prevent attacks on-premises, in the cloud, in networks, and in hybrid cloud environments.
- IBM QRadar is an SIEM solution that monitors the entire IT infrastructure and helps security experts prioritize alerts and defend against threats. It also offers insights into security incidents to determine the root cause of a network issue.
UEBA vs. SIEM vs. SOAR
- User and Event Behavioral Analytics (UEBA) utilizes algorithms and machine learning to monitor user activities and machine entities within a network. It helps identify suspicious activities and potential threats in real-time so it can issue alerts. UEBA applies behavioral analytics to look for any malicious activity or behavior that can lead to cyberattacks and sends alerts to IT teams, who can then investigate and quickly mitigate the threats before they cause any serious damage.
- SIEMs collect, collate, and analyze data in real-time to identify threats, discover trends, notify the security team about suspicious activities, and establish correlations between security events.Traditionally, SIEMs didn’t include behavioral analytics technology, which is why UEBA solutions were developed to address this gap (Imperva).
- Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) software collects, analyzes, and acts upon security incidents without human intervention. In addition to internal sources, SOAR collects information from external sources and endpoint security software. The automation feature of SOAR enhances time management and efficiency and minimizes human error. A SOAR platform enables a security analyst team to monitor security data from a variety of sources, including SIEMs and threat intelligence platforms (Crowdstrike, 2021).
How SIEM Solutions Can Benefit SOCs
No organization is safe from intrusions, and organizations of all sizes need constant monitoring to detect and respond to threats quickly. The longer a vulnerability or risk goes unnoticed, the greater the damage it can inflict on an organization. This is where having a dedicated security operation center (SOC) can enable 24/7 monitoring of an organization’s IT infrastructure and elevate a company’s cybersecurity posture.
SIEMs are an increasingly essential part of SOCs. With companies relying on IT networks, it’s difficult to manually monitor entire systems and analyze large amounts of data. By using SIEM tools, SOCs can automate the task of detecting threats, saving resources and labor while increasing efficiency and productivity. SIEMs provide SOC analysts with data of real-time network events and reduce their burden by investigating security incidents, sending out alerts and improving incident response times.
SOCs receives hundreds of alerts every day; SIEM tools analyze these data to detect incidents that constitute real threats. SIEMs allow already overworked security teams to use their time and attention to thwart potential data breaches.
How to Become an SOC Analyst
SOC analysts are essential to cybersecurity teams. Cybercriminals don’t take breaks—the cyber world is always vulnerable to attacks. As the first line of defense, SOC analysts save their organizations millions of dollars every year by reducing cybersecurity risks.
To become an SOC analyst, one must have the right skills and knowledge. There can be many learning routes to acquire the specific skill set and knowledge in network defense, ethical hacking, and technical and programming knowledge. Certifications are a popular way to gain hands-on experience and build professional competencies. EC-Council’s Certified SOC Analyst (C|SA) program equips candidates with industry-relevant skills and knowledge.
To learn more about the course, visit: https://www.eccouncil.org/train-certify/certified-soc-analyst-csa/
FAQs
Q. What is the difference between SIEM and SOC?
An SOC is a team of people and the system(s) they use to monitor and respond to security incidents ona network. SIEM software uses intelligent correlation rules to highlight links between events to support the IT team in analyzing and dealing with threats.
Q. What does an SOC analyst do?
Security analysts detect, investigate, and respond to incidents. They may also plan and implement preventative security measures and build disaster recovery plans.
Q. What is the difference between an SOC and a network operations center (NOC)?
SOCs and NOCs are responsible for identifying, investigating, prioritizing, escalating, and resolving issues, but the issues they resolve and the impact they have are considerably different. SOCs focus on “intelligent adversaries,” while NOCs deal with naturally occurring system events.
Q. What are SOC services?
SIEMs and SOCs provide real-time analysis of security alerts from within an organization’s network to maintain a secure environment while ensuring continuity in business operations.Learn more: https://egs.eccouncil.org/services/security-incident-and-event-management-siem-security-operations-soc/
MarketsandMarkets. (2020, February 4). Security information and event management market. https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/security-information-event-management-market.asp#:~:text=The%20global%20Security%20Information%20and%20Event%20Management%20%28SIEM%29,well%20as%20on%20cloud%20as%20per%20business%20requirements.
Imperva. (n.d.). User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA). https://www.imperva.com/learn/data-security/ueba-user-and-entity-behavior-analytics/#:~:text=User%20and%20Event%20Behavioral%20Analytics%20%28UEBA%29%20is%20a,it%20has%20security%20implications%2C%20and%20alerts%20security%20teams
Crowdstrike. (2021, September 14). Security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR). https://www.crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-101/security-orchestration-automation-and-response-soar/#:~:text=Security%20orchestration%2C%20automation%20and%20response%20%28SOAR%29%20is%20a,information%20and%20management%20systems%20and%20threat%20intelligence%20platforms
