Ruth Victor

What is Log Management?

Organizations produce vast amounts of log data and events from applications, networks, systems, and users. Managing this data requires a systematic process to oversee and monitor disparate log files. Log management involves the continuous process of centrally collecting, parsing, storing, analyzing, and disposing of data to provide actionable insights, which support troubleshooting, performance enhancement, and security monitoring.

What is a log file?

Log files are computer-generated data files that serve as a primary data source for information related to the activities, operations, and usage patterns of applications, servers, operating systems, and other devices. Logs are crucial for identifying and analyzing situations when applications, systems, and networks encounter operational bottlenecks or performance issues. They provide a detailed record of every action, offering insights that help identify the root cause of problems or anomalies. Log file management involves aggregating data from multiple log sources. The following are the most common log types

• Application Logs : These logs are generated when an event occurs within an application. Code developers use application logs to understand and measure how applications behave during the development cycle and prior to release.
• System Logs : These logs record events generated within the operating system, such as driver errors during startup, sign-in and sign-out events, and other system activities.
• Security Logs : These logs provide a detailed record of security events that occur on a computer. They collect various types of events, such as unsuccessful login attempts, failed authentication requests, password changes, or file deletions. Administrators can usually configure which events they want to record and track in the security log.

How to collect and organize logs

Organizations should collect, store, and organize data in a unified manner to make sifting through massive log data easy and quick. Implementing an out-of-the-box log management solution with an intuitive interface and smart capabilities helps businesses get a complete overview of the IT environment and ensure rapid issue identification and troubleshooting. The key steps in the log management process are listed below

What is security information and event management (SIEM)?

Security information and event management (SIEM) is a security solution that helps organizations recognize and address potential security threats and vulnerabilities before they can disrupt business operations. SIEM systems enable enterprise security teams to detect user behavior anomalies and utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to automate many of the manual processes associated with threat detection and incident response.

The original SIEM platforms began as log management tools, combining security information management (SIM) and security event management (SEM) functions. These platforms enabled real-time monitoring and analysis of security-related events and facilitated tracking and logging of security data for compliance or auditing purposes. Gartner coined the term SIEM for the combination of SIM and SEM technologies in 2005. Over the years, SIEM software has evolved to incorporate user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA), advanced security analytics, AI, and machine learning capabilities for identifying anomalous behaviors and indicators of advanced threats. Today, SIEM has become a staple in modern security operation centers (SOCs) for security monitoring and compliance management use cases.

How does SIEM work?

At the most basic level, all SIEM solutions perform data aggregation, consolidation, and sorting functions to identify threats and adhere to data compliance requirements. While some solutions vary in capability, most offer the same core set of functions:

• Log management

  SIEM ingests event data from a wide range of sources across an organization’s entire IT infrastructure, including on-premises and cloud environments. Event log data from users, endpoints, applications, data sources, cloud workloads, and networks, as well as from security hardware and software like firewalls or antivirus programs, is collected, correlated, and analyzed in real time. Some SIEM solutions also integrate with third-party threat intelligence feeds to correlate internal security data against known threat signatures and profiles. Integration with real-time threat feeds enables teams to block or detect new types of attack signatures.



• Event correlation and analytics

  Event correlation is a crucial component of any SIEM solution. Using advanced analytics to identify and understand complex data patterns, event correlation provides insights to quickly locate and mitigate potential threats to business security. SIEM solutions significantly improve mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR) for IT security teams by automating the manual workflows associated with the in-depth analysis of security events.



• Incident monitoring and security alerts

  SIEM consolidates its analysis into a single, central dashboard where security teams monitor activity, triage alerts, identify threats, and initiate response or remediation. Most SIEM dashboards also include real-time data visualizations that help security analysts spot spikes or trends in suspicious activity. Using customizable, predefined correlation rules, administrators can be alerted immediately and take appropriate actions to mitigate threats before they materialize into more significant security issues.

What differentiates SIEM and Log Management?

SIEM encompasses log management functionalities but extends beyond it to provide real-time monitoring, advanced threat detection, correlation, incident response, and compliance reporting capabilities.

What Is SOAR?

Security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) technology streamline and automate security operations by coordinating tasks across people and tools within a unified platform. This enables organizations to rapidly respond to cybersecurity threats while also gaining insights to prevent future incidents, ultimately enhancing their overall security posture.

A comprehensive SOAR product, as defined by Gartner, operates under three primary software capabilities: threat and vulnerability management, security incident response, and security operations automation. Threat and vulnerability management (orchestration) encompass technologies that address cyberthreats, while security operations automation (automation) pertains to technologies enabling automation and orchestration within operations.

SOAR platforms ingest alert data, which then initiates playbooks automating response workflows or tasks. Leveraging a blend of human expertise and machine learning, organizations can analyze this varied data to understand and prioritize automated incident response actions for future threats, thereby enhancing cybersecurity practices and refining security operations.

SOAR vs. SIEM

Many consider SOAR and SIEM as akin products because both identify security issues and gather data about the nature of the problem. They also handle notifications that security personnel can use to address concerns. However, significant differences exist between them.

SOAR, like SIEM, gathers data and notifies security teams via a centralized platform. However, while SIEM solely delivers alerts to security analysts, SOAR integrates automation and response into the investigation process through automated playbooks or workflows and artificial intelligence (AI) for pattern behavior learning. This capability enables SOAR to anticipate similar threats before they occur. Additionally, SOAR platforms like Cortex XSOAR often ingest alerts from sources not covered by SIEMs, such as vulnerability scan findings, cloud security alerts, and IoT device alerts. This integration facilitates alert deduplication, a common use case for SOAR and SIEM integration, which reduces the time required for manual alert handling. Consequently, IT security personnel can more efficiently detect and address threats.

Why Is SOAR Important?

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations face myriad cybersecurity challenges. As threats become more complex and malicious, companies must develop efficient strategies to safeguard their operations effectively. SOAR is at the forefront of transforming security operations by revolutionizing how teams manage, analyze, and respond to alerts and threats. Presently, security operations teams grapple with the daunting task of manually handling thousands of alerts daily. This manual approach not only leads to errors and operational inefficiencies but also highlights the limitations of outdated and siloed security tools. Moreover, the shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals exacerbates these challenges. Many security teams struggle to correlate data from disparate systems, resulting in numerous error-prone manual processes. Coupled with the scarcity of qualified talent, this situation leaves analysts overwhelmed and at risk of missing genuine threats amidst the noise. Given the escalating volume of threats and alerts and the resource constraints to address them, analysts must prioritize which alerts to address, often risking oversight of critical threats. This overburdening leads to a surge in errors as analysts endeavor to respond promptly to threats and malicious actors.

Given these challenges, it's imperative for organizations to implement systems like a SOAR platform to systematically orchestrate and automate their alert and response processes. By automating routine tasks that consume significant time, energy, and resources, security operations teams can enhance their efficiency and effectiveness in handling and investigating incidents, thus significantly improving the organization's overall security posture.

Finding the best SOAR solution for any security operations requires alignment of the vendor’s offerings and the SOC organization’s need to improve efficiency and efficacy. The right SOAR solution should not only complement and be compatible with the products, playbooks and processes that are already set in place, it should also optimize collaboration, offer flexibility in both deployment and hosting capabilities, and have a pricing model that aligns to the needs of the organization.