SIEM Solutions and Their Role in IT Security

Do you know how to protect your organization's sensitive data from today’s cyberthreats? One way is to arm the enterprise with a security information and event management (SIEM) tool. SIEM solutions provide a meaningful contribution to defense-in-depth strategies with their ability to detect, defend against, and conduct post-mortem analysis on cyberattacks and general IT security anomalies. Over the years, they have become a contributing force in meeting, maintaining, and proving a business’ alignment with regulatory compliance frameworks such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, and more. Let's take a look at how SIEM software works and why it's a must have for your business.

What is SIEM?

Predecessors of SIEM solutions, security information management (SIM), and security event management (SEM) began merging into one security system over a decade ago. When you run a SIEM tool, all your relevant security data can come from multiple locations, but you can look at all that data from one dashboard. Being able to access data across numerous locations and evaluate it in one location makes it easier to spot unusual patterns and trends, and react and respond quickly to any possible threats.

The SIEM software collects information from event logs spanning all your devices, including anti-virus, spam filters, servers, firewalls, and more. It then uses key attributes (IPs, users, event types, memory, processes, ports) that can indicate security incidents or issues to alert and respond quickly—and in many cases, automatically.

How Does SIEM Help With Security?

The event management portion of a SIEM solution stores and interprets logs in a central location and allows analysis in near real-time, which means IT security personnel can take defensive actions much more rapidly. The information management component provides trend analysis, as well as automated and centralized reporting for compliance by collecting data into a central repository. As a whole, a SIEM tool provides quicker identification and better analysis and recovery of security events by combining these two functions. Another advantage is that compliance managers can confirm they are fulfilling their enterprise's legal compliance requirements with a SIEM tool.

Advantages of a SIEM Tool

There are many advantages to using a SIEM tool, other than only needing one tool to monitor cybersecurity. SIEM systems can be used for different purposes, so the benefits will vary from one organization to another, but every organization that uses a SIEM tool will experience these main benefits:

1. Streamlined compliance reporting. SIEM solutions leverage the log data from various devices across an organization or enterprise.

1. Better detect incidents that otherwise might be missed. SIEM products enable centralized analysis and reporting for an organization's security events. The IT security analysis may detect attacks that were not found through other means, and some SIEM products have the capabilities to attempt to stop attacks they detect—assuming they are still in progress.

1. Improve their efficiency in handling activities. You can save time and resources with a SIEM tool because you can respond to security incidents more quickly and efficiently. IT professionals can quickly identify an attacker’s route, learn who has been affected, and implement automated mechanisms to stop the attack in its tracks.

What to Look for in a SIEM Tool

What features should you be looking for when shopping for a SIEM tool? Here are just a few of the important questions to consider when evaluating SIEM solutions:

1. Does the SIEM provide enough native support for all relevant log sources?

1. How well can the SIEM tool enhance current logging abilities?

1. Can the SIEM software effectively use threat intelligence to your advantage?

1. What features does the SIEM product offer to help carry out data analysis?

1. Are the SIEM's automated response capabilities timely, secure, and effective?

Stay Protected with SolarWinds Log & Event Manager

There are numerous SIEM tools to choose from, but SolarWinds Log & Event Manager (LEM) offers valuable features that can help you improve both your security and compliance, with relative ease and with limited impact on IT budgets.

These are just a few of the features LEM provides:

1. Detect suspicious activity. Eliminate threats faster by instantaneously detecting suspicious activity and sending automated responses.

1. Mitigate security threats. Conduct investigations of any security events and apply forensics for mitigation and compliance.

1. Achieve auditable compliance. Demonstrate compliance with audit-proven reporting for HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, and more.

1. Maintain continuous security. Your efforts to protect your business against cyberthreats should extend to the choices of software you employ to do so. LEM is deployed as a hardened virtual appliance with data encryption in transit and at rest, SSO/smart card integration, and more.

Purchase SolarWinds Log & Event Manager Software

Visit us online today to learn more about Log & Event Manager and get a free 30-day trial of the software. Learn more about the key features we offer in LEM, and watch our informative video explaining how it works. Get answers to frequently asked questions and hear from some of our very satisfied customers. This SIEM tool is clearly an industry favorite. Click here to see how it can help your enterprise or organization stay safe and secure from cyberthreats with the SolarWinds Log & Event Manager software.