By Sonit Jain, CEO of GajShield Infotech
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) is a cybersecurity tool that includes multiple systems and services to provide foolproof cyber protection for an organization’s data networks. SIEM systems are reliable because they use a holistic approach to deal with data security issues in an organization. A SIEM system’s all-encompassing way of providing cybersecurity helps with safeguarding the organization’s confidential and sensitive information more effectively.
SIEM systems maximize data security by bringing together two different components. Firstly, Security Information Management systems (SIMs) gather data from company records to analyze and create detailed reports regarding known and encountered cyber threats. Information management is important to deal with cyber threats faced previously by organizations. Secondly, Security Event Management systems (SEMs) conduct real-time monitoring of an organization’s data network and the devices connected to it. An SEM relays information to network administrators and data security personnel about vital issues while also establishing correlations between separate security incidents.
SIEM systems provide high real-time transparency for an organization across its data security infrastructure. Additionally, the collection of data from numerous sources is key for detecting and reporting network threats in a structured way. Generally, SIEM systems provide all their information and network security notifications on an interactive dashboard.
Implementation strategies to exploit SIEM’s core strengths
As a matter of fact, any data security tool is only as good as the implementation practices used by organizations deploying them. Organizations need to implement certain practices and strategies during the incorporation of SIEM systems to maximize their effectiveness. These actions may depend on various factors, such as the type of organization, types of operations carried out, the amount of data flow involved in those operations, specific network security requirements, and others. Some of the best practices in SIEM implementation are listed below:
a) Changing correlation rules
SIEM systems may need a minor tweaking of their in-built, pre-configured correlation rules to identify data security threats that would never be detected in isolation. Isolated threats are generally uncomplicated and can be dealt with by using standard cybersecurity tools. On the other hand, a combination of multiple threats may be hard to detect and cause greater damage to an organization if not handled early. So, the tweaking of a SIEM system’s correlation rules can be useful to alert network administrators about certain actions or combinations of actions (Example: a combination of five failed logins from an IP address within a certain time-frame followed by a successful login) that may lead to a cyber-attack on the company network. Such a pre-emptive move helps to reduce future attacks. Organizations can create their own rules for specific circumstances too.
b) Identifying compliance necessities
Compliance with regulations is an inherent part of any organization. Regulations such as GDPR are in place to ensure data security and privacy vigilance on the end of organizations. While scanning through the data security market to purchase a SIEM system, organizations need to clearly assess the data privacy regulations in their country, state or city to be able to purchase wisely. One of the key strategies before SIEM implementation is the careful assessment of data regulations applicable for a given area. Several service providers and software vendors can customize your SIEM system to suit your compliance needs.
On top of that, the purchase decision will also depend on the auditing requirements related to the collection of user data, the amount of data retained and stored in the company records, the format of storage, and other aspects before using SIEM for data security of your organization.
SIEM tools used to prevent cyber-attacks
Here are some of the tools available in the market that can be used for the early detection and prevention of cyber-attacks in organizations. These tools are easily available and are amongst the best SIEM systems for advanced cyber-protection of your data.
● SIEM security monitoring system
Generally, these systems are used for extensive and proactive cloud network monitoring and database management. They perform real-time network monitoring and record management for the effective handling of cyber threats.
● SIEM data security event manager
Used for streamlining the process of recording and usage of network security incidents or ‘events’, and to provide a wide range of log management features.
● SIEM event log analyser
Performs tasks similar to an event manager. This SIEM tool helps to manage, safeguard, and mine log files for various types of devices and operating systems.
Advantages of SIEM systems
SIEM is an incredibly proactive data security solution that is used to manage information storage of past network threats and detection of newer ones. Here are a few positive influences that a SIEM system can have on your existing cyber-protection infrastructure:
Smarter incident detection
Most data security tools may not provide the feature of in-built incident detection for users. Such systems, as a result, cannot detect future threats with the same efficiency and regularity as an SIEM system. SIEM tools correlate and evaluate the information stored in their logs to get a whiff of cyber threats that would have been completely overlooked if certain occurrences or combinations of incidents leading up to a cyber-attack were not recorded and addressed immediately.
Today’s data threats and breach attacks are highly sophisticated and resilient. So, organizations must implement measures to proactively deal with them or risk running into problems if a competently-orchestrated cyber-attack is allowed to permeate their data network and affect their devices and storage facilities.
And finally, if a threat is too great and even a SIEM system cannot stop it, the data security tool can at least mitigate the damage caused by it.
Vigilant compliance reporting
SIEM systems make it easier for organizations to adhere to data privacy regulations by simplifying the process of periodic compliance reporting. SIEM tools provide centralized data logging provisions to make the process more systematic. SIEM systems negate the need for network administrators to manually fetch data from each host in an IT environment. Without a SIEM system, they would have to painstakingly assemble single reports from such kinds of data. Retrieving data from various hosts is time-consuming as each host may have different log-in protocols. Ultimately, the process correlation becomes challenging if a SIEM system does not collect and collate the data.
As we have seen, SIEM provides next-level data security with optimal compliance reporting. Organizations around the world must implement these systems to reduce their chances of being on the wrong end of cyber-attacks.
Sonit Jain – CEO, GajshieldInfotech
A seasoned and successful entrepreneur, Mr. Sonit Jain started GajShield in 2002 and has been the driving force responsible for establishing GajShield as the leading and continuously emerging company, offering modular integrated security solutions. His passion to make Cyber Security accessible and interesting has led him to become a leading expert in the Cyber Security Space. Under his leadership, GajShield has accelerated growth, with a worldwide network across 10,000+ locations, a wealth of awards, and certifications, establishing the distinction of being the only Indian Brand, operating in the Indian firewall space since 2002.
With over 26 years of industry experience, Mr. Sonit Jain has been working in the area of Information Technology since 1993. His past stint includes Netcore Solutions and IndiaWorld. An impressive “Cyber Guru”, he introduces progressive innovations to safeguard the organizations from cyber threats by developing a contextual intelligence engine, a cybersecurity solution that brings greater visibility of network usage; the key to network security. His understanding of the cyber security space has helped in developing solutions to safeguards from cyber threats. He also headed the technical team that built IndiaWorld, India’s first web portal that was sold to SIFY for a whopping $115 million, which was also the first Indian site to implement cybercash-based billing in 1995.
Besides this, he is also involved in numerous projects, including the esteemed IIT-Mumbai’s Smart card project. Sonic also has been working strongly on improving the quality of Education in India, making it move away from a rote system to concept-based learning. Also interested in glamorizing Science and Technology, so that children can have their role models from this community.
Sonit has progressed through a series of technical and leadership roles at GajShield and his passion for new technologies enables him to step into opportunities to try out something that will bring a difference to the company. In his various other interests, he is an ardent sports enthusiast and loves to indulge in Football and also is a sightseer who believes that travel is a best meditation to adapt!