Summary: SIEM tools play an important role in a company’s security operations, enabling security teams to view, detect, and respond to security incidents. This article will help you choose the right security incident and event management solution for your company.
With the evolving digital landscape, the need for robust threat detection, incident response, and compliance management has become important. SIEM tools are one such solution that can help you in aggregating and analyzing different security data sources to provide insights into potential security incidents. In this article, you will learn about the top tools you can use for strengthening your security posture.
What is Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)?
Security information and event management (SIEM) is a type of security software that helps in organizing and addressing potential security vulnerabilities and threats that might impact everyday business operations. These systems help security teams detect user behavior anomalies and use AI for automating manual procedures related to threat detection and incident response.
How Does SIEM Work?
SIEM software collects the security log data generated via different sources such as firewalls and antivirus. Next, the software processes this data and converts it into a standard format.
After that, SIEM security tools perform analysis to identify and categorize security incidents. Once these are discovered, security alerts are sent to the personnel responsible for managing incidents. Moreover, these tools also generate reports specific to security incidents.
By going through these reports, security teams formulate incident management plans to tackle these incidents and mitigate their effects.
Important Features of SIEM Tools
SIEM security tools come with many essential features to streamline incident management and strengthen security within the organization. It comes with features like threat intelligence, compliance management, incident management, threat and attack detection. Here are some of the most essential features you get in security incident and event management software:
- Log Collection: SIEM tools collect log data from different sources like network devices, servers, applications, security appliances, etc.
- Event Correlation: SIEM software correlates and analyzes the collected data to identify patterns, trends, and potential security incidents by linking related events together.
- Alerts and Notification: SIEM solutions send alerts and notifications to the security team to quickly respond to suspicious activities and security incidents.
- Incident Management: These tools offer a built-in feature for investigating and responding to security incidents, helping organizations mitigate the impact of any potential security breach.
- Forensic Analysis: SIEM tools include forensic capabilities, allowing security teams to analyze historical data and understand the root cause of security incidents.
- User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA): With UEBA, you can monitor and analyze the behavior of users and entities involved in anomalous activities.
Our Methodology to Select SIEM Tools
We have considered the following factors to select the right software for you:
- A SIEM tool that can collect both log messages and live traffic data
- A module to manage log file data
- Software should offer data analysis capabilities
- Any software that is intuitive and easy to use
Top SIEM Tools and Software
| Software | Best for | Supported OS | Free Trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| SolarWinds Security Event Manager | Managing network events | Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris. | 30 days |
| IBM QRadar | Monitoring logs of different servers. | Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris. | Available |
| Dynatrace | Monitoring applications and infrastructure | Linux, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc. | 15 days |
| Elastic Security SIEM | Viewing apps data from one place | Supports Elastic Stack deployment | Free to use |
| New Relic | Enhancing visibility into the entire infrastructure | Linux, Windows, MacOS, ARM, etc. | Available |
| Splunk | Visualizing and analyzing data | Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris | Available |
| Datadog Cloud SIEM | Managing threat detection and investigations | Cloud-based | 14 days |
1. SolarWinds Security Event Manager
SolarWinds Security Event Manager is a SIEM software designed to detect and respond to security threats. It acts as a central hub for collecting, analyzing, and visualizing log data from several sources across your network, providing a unified view of your security posture. Some essential features of this software include File Integrity Monitoring, Network Security Monitoring, SIEM Log Monitoring, Botnet Detection, and so on.
SolarWinds Security Event Manager Features
- Provides centralized log collection and normalization
- Offers threat detection and response management
- Offers integrated compliance reporting tools
- Identifies and manages DDoS attacks
- Squid Proxy Server Log Analysis
How Does SolarWinds Security Event Manager Work?
SolarWinds Security Event Manager gathers and normalizes the log data from Agents and Non-agents’ devices into a centralized dashboard. After that, you can use it to identify patterns in the dashboard for anomalous activities. It can also help in creating rules to monitor event traffic and create an automated action for the events that occurred.
SolarWinds Security Event Manager Pros and Cons
- With it, you can automate compliance risk management.
- It lets you monitor events and logs from multiple sources to prevent DDoS attacks.
- It takes a lot of time to troubleshoot bugs.
2. IBM QRadar
IBM QRadar is a security information and event management (SIEM) solution developed by IBM. It helps organizations detect and respond to cybersecurity threats by collecting and analyzing log data from various sources across their IT infrastructure. QRadar provides real-time monitoring, correlation of events, and supports incident response activities, enhancing an organization’s overall cybersecurity posture.
IBM QRadar Features
- Performs network threat intelligence to identify threats
- Supports User behavior analytics (UBA) to identify anomalous activities
- Provides threat intelligence to understand the threat landscape
How Does IBM QRadar Work?
IBM QRadar collects, processes, and stores the network data in real time. The tool utilizes this data for managing network security via real-time information and monitoring, alerts, and responses to network threats.
IBM QRadar SIEM has a modular architecture to get real-time visibility into your IT infrastructure that you can use for threat detection and prioritization.
IBM QRadar Pros and Cons
- It provides extensive informational guide to locate important data in the software.
- The security monitoring process is completely automated with IBM QRadar.
- IBM QRadar can be complex to set up for those with no expertise.
3. Dynatrace
Dynatrace provides tools for application performance monitoring (APM), infrastructure monitoring, and digital experience monitoring. It helps organizations gain insights into the performance of their applications and infrastructure in real-time. Dynatrace uses artificial intelligence to automate problem detection, root cause analysis, and optimization of application performance, contributing to efficient and reliable digital operations.
Features of Dynatrace
- Provides advanced threat detection
- Triggers alerts when the risk increases
- Offers 1000+ integration apps
- Identifies and manages incidents
How Does Dynatrace Work?
With powerful core technologies, Dynatrace delivers analytics and automation for unified observability and security in a completely adaptable environment. For example, it can integrate with AppEngine for developing and hosting web applications at scale.
Dynatrace Pros and Cons
- Dynatrace has an easy setup that requires minimal technical expertise.
- It can also provide deep insights into the application performance.
- It offers limited customization options to customize dashboards and reports.
4. Elastic Security SIEM
Elastic Security SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), is a security solution provided by Elastic. This SIEM tool is designed to help organizations detect and respond to security threats by centralizing and analyzing security-related data. It comes with features to assess risk with ML and entity analytics, automate threat response, streamline threat workflows, and so on.
How Does Elastic Security SIEM Work?
This tool uses Beats (agents) to collect and ship logs and security events. Next, it uses this ingested data for analysis. After that, it uses pre-built rules and machine learning models to analyze the given data to detect anomalous activities, threats, etc. Once the threats are detected, alerts are sent to designated personnel based on anomaly detection outcome. Lastly, it automatically manages threats and incidents based on triggered actions.
Features of Elastic Security SIEM
- Collects and parseElastic Security SIEMs logs from various sources
- Uses threat intelligence to identify potential threats
- Analyzes the environment data at bulk
- Automates suspicious activity detection via behavior-based rules
Elastic Security SIEM Pros and Cons
- It can also identify 0-day malware.
- Its timeframe to manage incidents is quick.
- It does not provide any option to edit sensor profiles after you create them.
5. New Relic
New Relic is a monitoring platform that provides insights into application performance, user interactions, system behavior, etc. It enables developers and IT teams to detect issues, optimize performance, and improve user experience. With it, you get features like real-time monitoring, alerting, and analytics to help businesses maintain the reliability and efficiency of their software and applications.
Features of New Relic
- Encrypts confidential data for security
- Authenticates users via access management
- Meets the security compliance records
- Offers customizable security settings
How Does New Relic Work?
New Relic first adds all the apps logs data into the software visible via the application monitoring dashboard. Next, you can see the app data by going into Infrastructure >APM > Logs UI pages. In case you want to see more data, you can add it to the dashboard. After that, it notifies you via alerts in case any issues are detected within the application.
New Relic Pros and Cons
- It has an intuitive learning curve when it comes to visualizing and organizing data.
- New Relic offers deep insights into user behavior like session replays, error analysis, funnel analysis, etc.
- Its search functionalities are limited to monitoring and troubleshoot apps and infrastructure.
6. Splunk
Splunk Enterprise Security helps in monitoring and detecting events from different networks and security devices. Some features of this software include managing event correlations, sending alerts, analyzing threat topology, gaining visibility into IT infrastructure, sending risk-based alerts, etc. Moreover, it can help in identifying anomalies across different devices.
Splunk Features
- Provides advanced threat detection
- Triggers alerts when the risk increases
- Offers 1000+ integration apps
- Identifies and manages incidents
How Does Splunk Work?
Splunk works via a forwarder that collects data from various remote machines and forwards it to an index. This indexer then processes this data in real time. After that, end users can use this to find, analyze, and visualize data.
Splunk Pros and Cons
- The tool also supports real-time data streaming analytics.
- It also supports complex event correlations.
- Splunk provides limited options to customize the software.
7. Datadog Cloud SIEM
Datadog Cloud SIEM provides tools for monitoring and enhancing the security of an organization’s infrastructure, applications, containers, etc. It allows users to detect and respond to security threats by collecting and analyzing security-related data from various sources.
How Does Datadog Cloud SIEM Work?
Datadog Cloud SIEM identifies the threats in real-time in apps and infrastructure. The tool first analyzes the cloud audit logs and explores incident identification rules. Next, it reviews the logs to find whether the rules have been violated or not. If yes, a signal is generated, and notifications are sent to the designated personnel to respond to incidents.
Datadog Security Features
- Correlates and prioritizes events
- Detects threats in real-time
- Investigates incidents and responds quickly
- Offers a centralized dashboard for real-time collaboration
- Breaks silos between developers, security, operation teams, etc.
Datadog Cloud SIEM Pros and Cons
- It lets you track tens of thousands of infrastructure metrics and view historical records, even on infrastructure which doesn’t exist.
- Datadog offers an inbuilt dashboard that lets you visualize your entire tech system from one page.
- Users face issues while integrating apps with this software.
Conclusion
SIEM tools are an indispensable asset for organizational cybersecurity, providing a unified platform for monitoring, detecting, and responding to security incidents. By using SIEM tools, organizations can navigate the dynamic realm of cybersecurity with resilience and agility, safeguard their digital assets and maintain a vigilant defense against evolving cyber threats.
FAQs
Which SIEM tool is most used?
SolarWinds, Splunk, Datadog Cloud SIEM, and New Relic are some of the most used SIEM security tools that you can use for identifying and managing incidents.
What are examples of SIEM tools?
Popular examples of SIEM tools include Datadog, Exabeam, Splunk Enterprise Security, IBM QRadar, LogRhythm NextGen SIEM, etc.
What are SIEM and SOAR tools?
SIEM solutions provide notifications and alerts about threats and incidents. Whereas SOAR software contextualizes these alerts and applies remediation actions as required.
What are free SIEM tools?
With free SIEM tools, you can easily monitor your infrastructure and identify any anomalies without taking an active subscription. Some of the popular free SIEM tools include Prelude, OSSEC, Splunk free, QRadar, etc.
What is the primary function of security information and event management (SIEM)?
The main purpose of SIEM is to help companies detect, analyze, and quickly respond to security threats that affect everyday business operations.
What is SIEM meaning in cyber security?
SIEM stands for Security Information and Event Management, which is a type of software used to identify and respond to threats and incidents.
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Written by
Varsha
Varsha is an experienced content writer at Techjockey. She has been writing since 2021 and has covered several industries in her writing like fashion, technology, automobile, interior design, etc. Over the span of 1 year, she has written 100+ blogs focusing on security, finance, accounts, inventory, human resources,... Read more
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