To effectively manage your IT system’s security, and for your overall cyber security integrity, your organisation needs security information and event management (SIEM) software. As well as enabling you to manage security logs and alerts, a SIEM offers valuable insights.
The myriad of tools and features they contain provides information that can help your organisation make informed decisions about your cyber security and improve your readiness against attacks.
With the increasing number of SIEM tools available in 2022, it can make choosing the right one difficult. To help you pick the right one, we have put together a list of some of the best SIEM tools around, as well as some details on when and why you should use them.
SIEM tools come in all shapes and sizes, with some offering affordability over functionality and others offering the opposite. We’ll cover a good mixture of the two here and hopefully, provide a couple of options that fit the bill for your organisation.
What should I look for in a good SIEM tool?
There are a few different aspects of a SIEM tool that you need to look out for. Ultimately, a SIEM will live and die on its ability to monitor events and create alerts, as well as collect, aggregate, and analyse data. Outside of this, there are some fundamental functionalities that you need to consider when choosing a SIEM tool:
- The ability to detect intruders by analysing data in real-time. The SIEM should also be able to contextualise this data, allowing it to detect intruders quickly.
- Log collection from all sources that you need to monitor from a cyber security perspective.
- The quality and functionality of its alert system. The tool should be able to automatically alert specific members of your security team and be customisable in this sense.
- Being able to visualise and present data in a way that is easy to understand and navigate. These views give your security team valuable insights quickly and should be fully customisable.
- Efficient and easy-to-use data storage and filtering. Often, security teams will need to find details about specific events, so your SIEM needs to facilitate this.
- The tool’s ability to support your cyber security compliance needs through reporting and monitoring.
Microsoft Sentinel
Acting as Microsoft’s answer to SIEM solutions, Microsoft Sentinel is a module within Microsoft Azure that fulfils two roles. As well as a SIEM, Sentinel also acts as a security orchestration automated response (SOAR) solution. This gives it a big advantage over other solutions as most organisations would need two separate solutions to fulfil these roles.
A SOAR allows an organisation to respond to security threats in real-time, often without requiring human assistance through the use of advanced AI. This drastically improves the efficiency of a security team.
By combining these two solutions, Microsoft Sentinel can save organisations a lot of money and remove the hassle of integrating different software.
It also has the advantage of integrating seamlessly with all Microsoft products. If your business uses Office 365, Defender 365, or any other Azure services, Sentinel would be the perfect SIEM tool for you.
As well as integrating with other Microsoft products, Sentinel features industry-leading third-party integration, allowing security teams to gather data from virtually any source within their network.
Microsoft Sentinel is also cost-effective. By charging per gigabyte of data you use, as well as for the amount of data retention you require, organisations are only charged for what they use, rather than being pigeon-holed into specific plans.
SolarWinds SEM
SolarWinds SEM is a specialist security event manager with many of the features required for a SIEM tool. It’s been designed to provide log monitoring in addition to incident management, with an emphasis on quick threat prioritisation and issue response.
By focusing on UX design, SolarWinds SEM has been able to deliver a tool with great usability. It’s intuitive to use and features dynamic data visualisation, enabling security teams to easily gain insights into the data they’re collecting.
The tool also features automation functionality to provide pseudo-24/7 threat detection, as well as a built-in alert system that is similar to Microsoft Sentinel’s.
Whilst it isn’t as cost-effective as Sentinel, SolarWinds SEM is still a relatively cheap option. This is due to the pricing model scaling with the number of log-emitting sources an organisation has, giving a degree of scalability.
Unfortunately, unlike Microsoft Sentinel, it doesn’t feature SOAR functionality, so will require a separate tool or service to utilise the excellent log monitoring and management that it possesses. This does add some additional stress to a security team, so organisations looking to keep things in one place will want to look elsewhere.
Splunk Enterprise Security
One of the bigger names in SIEM technology, Splunk is utilised by a lot of large organisations due to being designed for enterprises. Unfortunately, this does mean that the pricing models can be prohibitively expensive for smaller organisations.
Whilst Splunk does feature a well-designed UX and great data visualisation, it can be bogged down by its requirement of being an on-premises or SaaS solution. This can lead to a more complex deployment and installation process, especially if you opt for the on-premises option.
Similar to Sentinel, Splunk also offers good third-party integrations and plugins, allowing a security team to customise the solution where needed and gain access to data from a wide variety of sources.
It is widely recognised that Splunk does have a steep learning curve for usability, though, especially in comparison to other solutions. Due to this, it can require a lot more training and time for your security team to get up to speed with it. If you’re looking for a tool that is ready to use straight from the box, you might be better off looking elsewhere.
How can I choose the right SIEM tool for my business?
Choosing the right SIEM tool is never easy. With so many options on the market, it’s important to do your research and find the solution that works best for your business.
In this article, we have highlighted a few of the most popular and effective options. There are many more available that cater to organisations in certain industries or feature niche functionality. Consider your business’ processes, current cyber security status, and the role that a SIEM will play for you.
In general, we always advise our clients to use Microsoft Sentinel. As well as offering industry-leading SIEM functionality, it has the advantage of providing SOAR technology within the same solution. It’s also quick to set up, cost-effective to use, scales to the size of your organisation, and is one of the most powerful SIEM tools on the market.
Now that you know a bit more about some of the industry’s leading SIEM tools, you probably have a few questions. If you would like to find out more about how a SIEM can benefit your business, get in touch with us today.
