In cybersecurity as in sports, teamwork makes the dream work. In a world where security analysts can feel constantly bombarded by threat actors, banding together to share information and strategies is increasingly important. Over the last few years, security operations center (SOC) analysts started sharing open source Sigma rules to create and share detections that help them level the playing field.

The cybersecurity domain mirrors the physical space, with the security operations center (SOC) acting as your digital police department. Cybersecurity analysts are like the police, working to deter cybercriminals from attempting attacks on their organization or stopping them in their tracks if they try it. When an attack occurs, incident responders, akin to digital detectives, piece together clues from many different sources to determine the order and details of events before building a remediation plan.

Site reliability engineers (SREs) and security analysts — despite having very different roles — share a lot of the same goals. They both employ proactive monitoring and incident response strategies to identify and address potential issues before they become service impacting. They also both prioritize organizational stability and resilience, aiming to minimize downtime and disruptions.

When evaluating a SIEM, two key factors stand out: flexibility in data handling and open architecture. These two elements significantly enhance a platform’s efficiency and adaptability in managing cybersecurity threats. Whether you’re evaluating your current SIEM or looking for a more modern solution, here are five questions to ask to gauge its flexibility.

It seems as though responders cannot catch a break when it comes to 0-day vulnerabilities and supply chain compromise avenues. On March 29th, 2024, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency published an alert regarding a supply chain compromise of the XZ Utils package. At time of writing, there is no information regarding exploitation of the vulnerability and follow-on post-compromise activity.

Imagine you’re up against the world’s most advanced adversaries — those that use automation and AI, can drop malware in seconds and break out from compromised endpoints to navigate target environments in just over two minutes. This is a day in the life of a CrowdStrike SOC engineer.

SIEM and log management provide security to your organization; these tools allow your security analysts to track events such as potential and successful breaches of your system and react accordingly. Usually, it doesn’t matter how you ensure your organizational safety as long as you do. However, is your organization in the health, financial, or educational industry?

In today’s cloud-native world, systems are usually accessed by users from multiple devices and in various geographic locations. Anyone who has tried to operationalize an impossible travel type alert for cloud resources will understand the myriad nuances and gotchas involved in such an endeavor. A user may be accessing a cloud resource from a mobile device that is tied to a carrier network well away from their normal geographic location.

So, you’ve done your homework. You’ve clearly defined business requirements, and you think you want to implement a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution into your organization. Cloud migration and remote work have changed the way threat actors attack, and it feels like every day you read about a new methodology. While a lot of companies added a SIEM to their cybersecurity technology stack, you’re not sure whether you can afford one.