Welcome Guest. | Log In | Register | Membership Benefits

SIEM Users Seek To Drill Deeper Into Security Data, Study Says

Security monitoring, data warehousing, and business intelligence are on integration path, according to Forrester Research

Aug 15, 2011 | 10:26 PM | 

By Tim Wilson
Dark Reading
If you have security information and event management (SIEM) technology, then you're probably mining the data it collects in an effort to identify threats and measure risk, according to a study published Monday.

The study, conducted by Forrester Research and sponsored by SIEM vendor SenSage, suggests that enterprises are increasingly using their security log and event data to get a closer look at the attacks that take place each day, and the risk associated with new exploits.

IT and security organizations are seeking to apply traditional business intelligence and analytics tools and processes to IT security data, helping them to identify advanced persistent threats, trends in online attacks, and the risks they might pose to the business, according to Forrester.

In the study of IT executives in more than 80 large enterprises, more than two-thirds of respondents (67 percent) said that "increasing our use of business intelligence and decision support tools and services" is a high priority (48 percent) or a critical priority (19 percent).

IT organizations are following the same path as many large businesses, which began their data mining efforts by building large data warehouses and then applying business intelligence tools to mine them for useful trends or anomalies, Forrester says.

"The intersection of SIEM, data warehousing, and business intelligence resonates throughout the IT organization and is driven by three powerful forces: vast amounts of data being generated by IT systems; sophisticated and difficult-to-discover new threats; and the added complexity from mobile device proliferation, IT consumerization, and cloud computing requirements," the report says. "This combination creates a perfect storm for even the most advanced IT organization."

More than 40 percent of the companies surveyed had SIEM systems in place or were planning to implement them in the next 12 months, according to the report. Most of the respondents said their top priorities for SIEM are incident investigation (88 percent "important" or "very important"), compliance and reporting (86 percent), and event correlation (78 percent).

Interestingly, 61 percent said they use their SIEM tools to "demonstrate the effectiveness of our security program" to outside organizations.

"What we're finding is that many organizations are using their SIEM tools for a lot more than what they originally thought they would," says Joe Gottlieb, CEO of SenSage. "They've had their systems in place for a while, and now they're looking to do a deeper dive on the data."

Have a comment on this story? Please click "Comment" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message.



Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

Dark Reading encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, Dark Reading moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing/SPAM. Dark Reading further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.
Subscribe to RSS



Security Monitoring Reports

report Fundamentals of User Activity Monitoring
Benchmarking normal activity and then monitoring for users who stray from that norm is an essential strategy for getting ahead of potential data and system breaches. But choosing the right tools is only part of the effort. Without sufficient training, efficient deployment and a good response plan, attackers could gain the upper hand.

report Does SIEM Make Sense For Your Company?
A security information and event management system serves as a repository for all the security alerts and logging systems from a firm's devices. But this can be overkill for a company that is understaffed or has overestimated its security information needs. In this report, we discuss 10 questions to ask yourself in determining whether SIEM makes sense for you--and how to pick the right system if it does.

report Monitoring Tools and Logs Make All The Difference
It's no longer a matter of "if" you get hacked, but when. In this special report, we take a look at ways to measure your security posture and the challenges that lie ahead with the emerging threat landscape.

Other reports from the Security Monitoring Tech Center:

Related Content

Security Management 2.0: Time to Replace Your SIEM?
Is it time? Are you waving the white flag? Has your first gen SIEM failed to meet expectations despite your investment? If you are questioning whether your existing product or service can get the job done, you are not alone. Read this Securosis white paper to learn how easy it can be to replace your SIEM with a next generation solution.

IT Executive Guide to Security Intelligence: Transitioning from SIEM to Total Security Intelligence
Read this whitepaper to learn how adopting a next generation SIEM solution provides security intelligence, to allow organizations to maintain comprehensive and cost-effective information security. Discover how security intelligence enables critical concerns in five key areas: Data silo consolidation, threat detection, fraud discovery, risk assessment/risk management, and regulatory compliance.

The Return on Security of QRadar: Improving Operational Efficiencies in Federal Government
In this study, IANS interviewed two Q1 Labs customers using QRadar to assess their Return On Security (ROS). The two customers were providers of service to the U.S. Government and had highly secure environments dealing with extremely sensitive data. The data yielded from the interviews showed substantial benefit to the organizations for the cost, both in money and staff time.

SANS What Works Webcast: Worldwide Retailer Boosts Privacy with Security Intelligence
A leading retailer with stores worldwide was seeking a more innovative tool to protect customer privacy and intellectual property. PCI compliance mandated log collection, but a vast number of different tools generated an overwhelming amount of log data, making it difficult for the small security team to review it effectively. The solution the company chose had to fit into a diverse network, provide intelligent reporting and offer a centralized management console.

Learn How Security Intelligence Can Help Combat WikiLeaks Stuxnet and Advanced Threats
WikiLeaks and Stuxnet have illustrated a few fundamental IT security issues that have underscored the need for Total Security Intelligence to counter advanced threats and to detect anomalous behavior. See how government and commercial organizations are using QRadar as an integral component of their IT security program to identify emerging threats based on context and situational awareness.




Featured Webcasts
Featured Whitepapers
Featured Reports