SIEM and SOAR: Are They Right For Your Organization?
SIEM and SOAR are critical for helping organizations defend against cyberattacks because they do different but equally important things. SIEM is a way of helping you identify and understand cyber threats by collecting data about them, while SOAR is about finding efficient ways of responding to cyber threats.
Neither SIEM nor SOAR is better than the other, and they work best in tandem. But to really understand what SIEM and SOAR are, the specific ways they can help you, and whether you need them for your business, we need to dig into the details.
So, let’s dive in.
What is SIEM?
In the most basic terms, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) will help you see and understand cybersecurity threats.
Adding a bit more detail, SIEM brings real-time security event data (combined with contextual information about users, assets, threats, and vulnerabilities) to one interface, helping security personnel with incident response, forensics, and regulatory compliance.
SIEM was coined by Gartner as a way of combining SIM (Security Information Management) and SEM (Security Event Management) into one interface. The idea is that, in the rapidly evolving digital world, when companies of all sizes and industries are likely to be attacked by bad cyber actors, security events are occurring constantly, and data about them and your IT systems should be compiled in one place. This gives you maximum visibility into the activity across your entire network, which makes it easier to identify, address, and manage vulnerabilities and to see and stop potential attacks before they become a major threat.
Let’s look at the main components of SIEM.
8 Components of SIEM
SIEM isn’t a single product or solution; it’s a technological concept with many components, each addressing different security needs.
Here are eight critical elements of SIEM:
Data collection: A core function of a SIEM system is to aggregate and collect security-related data from various sources within an organization's IT infrastructure, such as network devices (firewalls, routers, switches), servers (logs, system events), applications (databases, web servers), and endpoints (workstations, mobile devices).
Data normalization: Once you collect this data, you need to normalize it because it will be in various formats depending on the device and application it came from. This involves standardizing the data format and structure to analyze it and make key correlations effectively.
Data correlation: Once your data is normalized, it needs to be correlated across different security events and logs in real-time. This is how SIEM starts to identify meaningful patterns and relationships that may signal complex security threats that may not be isolated events.
Alerting and incident management: When SIEM picks up a threat based on predefined rules and correlation logic, it generates alerts. Your security team should receive these alerts to be aware of anomalies in your security data. They should leverage incident management capabilities within SIEM to investigate, document, and resolve the incidents.
Dashboards and reporting: SIEM's dashboards and reporting capabilities help you visualize data and trends and track key metrics. Dashboards are typically for real-time information, like active threats, top security events, and system health. At the same time, reporting allows you to generate reports for executive summaries, detailed forensic analyses, or compliance audits.
Compliance and log management: SIEM solutions often include capabilities for compliance management because they collect and analyze much of the data you need to meet regulatory requirements, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), or GDPR. This is possible with good log management, in that you need to have your data securely stored, easily accessible, and auditable.
Threat intelligence integration: Many SIEM solutions integrate with external threat intelligence feeds. These feeds provide another layer of real-time information about emerging threats, malicious IP addresses, vulnerabilities, and other indicators of compromise (IOCs), enriching your analysis of advanced cyber threats.
User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA): Advanced SIEM platforms may further incorporate UEBA capabilities so that you can analyze the behavior of users and entities (like your servers and applications) within your network. UEBA helps detect insider threats, compromised accounts, or unusual activity that deviates from normal behavioral patterns and often leads to cyber events.
What are the benefits of SIEM?
Together, these components can give your company a centralized platform for effectively monitoring, detecting, and responding to security incidents.
By aggregating and analyzing data from various sources, SIEM helps organizations enhance their overall cybersecurity posture and mitigate risks more proactively by providing them with:
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Threat monitoring: Cyber threats are a 24/7/365 reality, and SIEM systems are designed to continuously monitor and analyze logs and events from various sources within your business's IT environment. This way, you can see whether there are any unauthorized access attempts, malware infections, and other security incidents in real-time.
Incident response: With the average downtime of a cyberattack rising to more than 20 days in the US, immediately responding to an attack is critical. The advanced correlation and analysis techniques in SIEM can trigger alerts, automated responses, and notifications that should kick your Incident Response Plan into action. If you don’t have an Incident Response Plan, now is the time to develop one!
Proactive security: In the cat-and-mouse cybersecurity game, one of the biggest challenges is staying ahead of the bad actors. The ability of SIEM platforms to aggregate security data in a centralized way and automatically warn you about potential threats immensely strengthens your overall security posture.
Compliance reporting: Regulations can be a nightmare that never goes away, particularly in heavily regulated industries like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. SIEM platforms store the data that makes compliance easier while lessening your security risk. Some next-gen SIEM platforms leverage AI, and all of these features together can help you stay safe and compliant so that you can focus on maximizing your business goals.
What is SOAR?
In the most basic terms, Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) will help you respond to cyber threats.
Adding a bit more detail, SOAR is an integrated collection of software tools and solutions that help organizations streamline security operations in three specific areas:
Orchestration: Connecting and integrating different security tools and systems to work together seamlessly.
Automation: Executing security tasks and workflows without human intervention.
Response: Managing and coordinating actions taken to address security incidents.
Let’s dig a bit deeper into SOAR by diving into its critical components.
The 3 Components of SOAR
Unlike SIEM, SOAR is a single product or solution, but there are many vendors and different offerings.
That said, there are three main components:
Orchestration: SOAR platforms connect with various security tools, such as SIEMs, firewalls, and antivirus programs. This centralizes information and control, allowing seamless communication and coordination between disparate systems. Orchestration ensures that various tools and processes work together in a coordinated manner.
Automation: SOAR automates repetitive tasks and processes. SOAR platforms can perform routine tasks automatically, such as updating ticket statuses, sending notifications, or executing commands on security devices. Playbooks come into play! Playbooks are predefined, automated workflows that guide the response to specific types of security incidents. Playbooks can include collecting data, analyzing threats, and executing predefined responses. Automation reduces manual intervention and speeds up incident response.
Response: SOAR platforms provide tools to respond to an incident, like managing and tracking security incidents from detection to resolution. This includes case management, tracking incident status, and documenting actions taken. SOAR platforms often include features that facilitate communication and collaboration among security team members. This can involve shared dashboards, chat integrations, and documentation tools.
Aside from the main components of SOAR, there are some other aspects to SOAR solutions as well. They include:
Analytics and reporting: SOAR platforms typically offer customizable dashboards that provide visibility into security operations, incident statuses, and performance metrics. Automated and customizable reports help track incident trends, response times, and other key performance indicators. This data is crucial for continuous improvement and compliance.
Integration and customization: SOAR platforms often come with APIs and pre-built connectors for integrating with various security and IT tools. Some SOAR platforms incorporate threat intelligence feeds and machine learning algorithms to enhance decision-making and automate more complex tasks, such as identifying and correlating threats. These integrations allow for flexible customization based on the organization’s specific needs. Organizations can tailor playbooks and automation scripts to fit their unique processes and threat landscape.
These components work together to streamline security operations, reduce response times, and improve overall efficiency in managing security incidents.
What are the benefits of SOAR?
SOAR helps you minimize the impact of security events and protect your security investments and business operations.
The benefits of having SOAR include:
Enhanced efficiency: SOAR automates routine tasks and responses, reducing the need for manual intervention and freeing up your security team to focus on more strategic activities, including reducing the risk of human error. All the automation around predefined workflows also leads to quicker containment and mitigation of threats.
Scalability and flexibility: SOAR platforms can be customized with specific playbooks, scripts, and integrations to meet the unique needs of an organization, making them scalable as the organization grows. By automating repetitive tasks, SOAR platforms help optimize the use of security resources, allowing teams to handle more incidents with the same or fewer resources and helping them maintain flexibility while scaling.
Enhanced collaboration: By centralizing security technologies, SOAR platforms often include features for team collaboration, such as shared dashboards and communication tools, which help improve coordination and information sharing among security team members. SOAR can be a strategic part of the structural development of any security team.
Data-driven insights: SOAR platforms provide valuable insights through analytics and reporting, helping organizations identify trends, measure performance, and continuously improve their security posture.
Who needs SIEM and SOAR?
SIEM and SOAR solutions are typically seen in large institutions; however, the increasing complexity of cyber threats has made SIEM and SOAR solutions more of a necessity for smaller organizations (like Small and Midsize Businesses).
Organizations across various industries utilize SIEM and SOAR platforms. Anyone facing a cybersecurity threat could benefit from any of the SIEM and SOAR tools. Here are some types of businesses and organizations that commonly use them:
Financial institutions: Banks, insurance companies, investment firms, and other financial institutions heavily rely on SIEM and SOAR to protect financial transactions, customer data, and comply with regulatory requirements like PCI DSS.
Healthcare providers: Hospitals, clinics, healthcare networks, and medical research facilities use SIEM and SOAR to safeguard patient health information (PHI), comply with regulations such as HIPAA, and act as a force multiplier to prevent cyber attacks.
Government agencies: Federal, state, and local government entities deploy SIEM and SOAR to protect sensitive government data, critical infrastructure, and citizen information. These platforms help government agencies detect and respond to cyber threats and meet compliance mandates like the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act).
Educational institutions: Universities, colleges, and K-12 school districts can use SIEM and SOAR to protect student records, intellectual property, and research data. These tools help educational institutions monitor network activity, mitigate unauthorized access and data breach risks, and focus their cyber preparedness efforts. ultimately ensure that students — many minors — have security around their data.
Retail and E-commerce: Retailers and e-commerce companies use SIEM and SOAR to secure customer payment information, prevent fraud, and protect online transactions. SIEM and SOAR help monitor e-commerce platforms, inventory management systems, and customer databases for suspicious activities and are particularly critical during the shopping season.
Energy and utilities: Energy companies, utilities, and infrastructure providers deploy SIEM and SOAR to protect critical infrastructure from cyber threats, ensure uninterrupted service delivery, and comply with regulations such as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP).
Technology and IT services: Technology firms, IT service providers, and managed security service providers (MSSPs) use SIEM and SOAR to offer their clients enhanced security monitoring and incident response capabilities. These tools help these businesses protect their operations and provide value-added security services, and are especially critical given that about 94% of companies worldwide utilize the cloud.
Legal and professional services: Law firms, accounting firms, and other professional services organizations use SIEM and SOAR to protect client confidentiality, sensitive legal documents, and financial data.
Manufacturing and industrial sectors: Manufacturing is now the most-attacked industry, so industrial facilities deploy SIEM and SOAR to protect intellectual property, manufacturing processes, and industrial control systems (ICS) from cyber threats and operational disruptions.
Conclusion
SIEM and SOAR are essentially a two-part approach to thorough cybersecurity for your organization. SIEM focuses on monitoring threats, while SOAR focuses on how to respond to them. Companies across virtually every industry that care about protecting their data, complying with regulations, and operating continuously can benefit from implementing SIEM and SOAR solutions. While the specific use cases and configurations of SIEM and SOAR may vary based on industry-specific regulatory requirements, operational needs, and the scale of your IT infrastructure, if you have a prominent cybersecurity presence, SIEM and SOAR can work for you.
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