AI-powered SIEM solutions can help you root out the most dangerous cyber threats.
These days, businesses face serious risks including hackers, critical vulnerabilities, internal threats and confidential data theft. These threats can place a heavy burden on security teams, which are often already overstretched due to the talent shortage.
And yet, the data needed to detect risks is readily available. To prevent serious attacks, companies need to arm their teams with a powerful tool that can interpret data and determine which threats require investigation.
Insufficient threat visibility
Security analysts are bombarded with alerts every single day. These alerts are typically generated by disparate monitoring solutions deployed across the IT environment. But are all these threats equally critical? Which ones require urgent action? It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.
No human can sift through such a large torrent of data and detect critical threats. And the consequences for organizations are substantial. According to a recent study by Cisco, 44% of all alerts are not examined and 54% of legitimate alerts are left unremediated. This inability to accurately analyze all data puts companies at risk and represents one of the biggest challenges facing cybersecurity professionals.
Security teams need a clearer picture of which threats warrant investigation. A security information and event management (SIEM) solution can provide this visibility. It does this by pooling, processing and correlating log stream and network data to track threats, which are then prioritized by importance.
However, not all monitoring solutions are created equal. Different suppliers define SIEM in different ways. Investigation scope and analysis functionality also vary considerably from system to system. One of the solutions that NOVIPRO recommends is IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson.
How to ensure effective monitoring
According to a recent study, the average security team uses 84 different products. The time spent managing all these tools drastically limits the amount of time teams can devote to securing their IT environment. To be effective, a SIEM solution must be able to monitor all the organization’s log stream and network data through a centralized interface. Whether the data originates in endpoints, network equipment, a cloud environment or a data lake, all of it has to converge in a single tool so analysts can get a comprehensive picture of the status of their IT systems.
And to facilitate alert sorting, this unified monitoring solution should be automated. By configuring smart analytics rules in data processing, the SIEM tool establishes correlations between different events and consolidates them under a single potential incident, thereby reducing the number of alerts that need to be examined. When analytics makes it possible to create graphic representations containing prioritized and actionable information, security teams can rapidly make informed decisions.
A centrally managed and automated monitoring solution can generate considerable time savings. These savings enable security teams to shift away from defensive actions (incident resolution) and implement proactive measures to fight off threats. According to M-Trends 2018, it currently takes an average of 101 days to detect a threat. An effective monitoring solution can reduce your vulnerability and give you the tools to respond more quickly.
Facilitating incident resolution with artificial intelligence
When an alert is raised, security analysts typically rely on their system knowledge and sift through vast amounts of information including blog posts, websites and research articles. Only then can they identify the problem and send detailed instructions to remediation teams.
This time-consuming process can be significantly shortened with artificial intelligence (AI). AI simultaneously analyzes both structured and unstructured data. It then contextualizes the threat and provides security teams with potential solutions so they can address the problem more quickly.
AI isn't meant to replace human intervention. It only works if it has access to quality data, and an experienced specialist has to oversee its results. Teams and technology must work effectively together to improve knowledge and practices so attacks can be stopped and intrusions can be cut short.
IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson
IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson combines the functionalities of a SIEM solution, the cognitive capacities of AI and cutting-edge analysis to enable your security teams to work more effectively. With results typically noticeable within a week of installation, IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson offers you peace of mind knowing that all your IT operations are being monitored and threats will be processed and prioritized in record time.
Talk to a NOVIPRO representative to find out more.
