The Importance of SIEM in a Cybersecurity Plan

A successful cybersecurity plan is always growing and evolving with knowledge and understanding of new threats. It can’t be stated enough: quality cybersecurity needs layers, layers, layers! One layer all organizations should consider is security information and event management (SIEM) software. SIEM has developed tremendously since its conception more than a decade ago, and it plays a crucial role in tracking data within an organization. But what is SIEM software? How does it work? Why is it important? What are the benefits? These are the questions we will tackle in this blog!

What is SIEM?

According CSOonline.com, SIEM is a combination of security event management (SEM) and security information management (SIM). SEM analyzes log and event data by monitoring potential threats, event correlation and incident response. SIM collects, analyzes and reports log data. SIEM combines these functions in one security management software. Some features of SIEM products include integration with other security controls, AI capabilities, threat intelligence, compliance reporting, and forensics. The overarching goal of SIEM software is to collect relevant data, identify deviations from the norm, and creating appropriate action.

How does SIEM work?

SIEM software collects log data generated throughout an organization’s infrastructure, host systems and security applications such as firewalls and antivirus filters. From there, incidents and events are identified and analyzed. This data includes failed login attempts or malware activity. Security alerts are then generated by the software in which the organization can set as low or high priority. For example, the software could identify that a user has 15 failed login attempts and set the security alert priority as low since this probably just means the user has forgotten his or her login credentials. However, if the user has 200 failed login attempts in 30 minutes, this would be flagged as high priority because it is most likely a brute-force attack.

Why is SIEM important?

Enterprises are always looking to secure their assets while also making security management easier. SIEM is important for any organization for this very reason. SIEM allows organizations to detect security threats faster and more accurately. SIEM catches malicious activity that otherwise might go unnoticed. The software can also ensure that an organization is meeting compliance requirements by generating reports that display all logged security events. Without SIEM software, the organization would have to gather this data and compile reports manually.

Benefits of SIEM

Along with the importance of the software, SIEM provides some great benefit for organizations that utilize it. They include the following:

• Increases the speed in which threats are detected and eliminated, significantly minimizing the damage of those threats.
• Provides a holistic view of an organization’s cybersecurity environment, creating an easier way to gather, analyze, and manage security information.
• Tailored to match security needs of any company’s collected data or compliance reporting.
• Supports large data capacity to allow organizations to continue to increase data collection.
• Threat detection and prioritized security alerts to keep security risks out in front without allowing anything to slip through the cracks.