Why did you buy a SIEM?

Why did you buy a SIEM?

Of course, you take cyber security seriously and have spent a lot of money on tech to help you detect threats and protect your business from ransomware, IP theft, data theft and loss of PII. You also need to be compliant to regulations that are specific to your industry and boy are you paying for it. Cyber security is one of the biggest spend categories in IT still and shows no signs of slowing.

Of course you have SIEM. Everyone has SIEM. SIEM has always promised much, but has it really delivered? What promises are you paying for and have those promises been kept? Maybe there are a few things that you really need from SIEM but are you still paying extra for the undelivered promises?

Every vendor telling you they have the magic bullet that can solve all your cyber problems just compounds the issue and adds to the fatigue of managing risk with too few resources and not enough money.

So, let’s look at core SIEM capability and see what we really need.

  • Log collection and correlation – secure and complete collection of logs, normalisation and parsing of log data for analysis
  • Alerting – customisable thresholds for real time alerts.
  • Drill down into events – threat hunting through a combination or drill down and query based searching
  • Log storage, retention and forensics – ability to efficiently store (data compression, filtration and truncation) of log data for compliance and forensics
  • User monitoring – who’s doing what, with what systems and with what privileges?
  • Reporting and compliance – out of the box compliance reports for a range of use cases
  • Dashboards & Analytics – visualisation of areas of concern and policy management

The Cost of Your SIEM + A SIEM Alternative

Ultimately for most it is about finding indicators of compromise and eliminating false positives and avoiding “alert fatigue”.

This is probably what you are getting from your SIEM, but are you also paying for “AI” or “Machine Learning”, “anomaly detection”, “advanced UEBA” or other advanced functionality even its it’s not mature and is still of questionable value, or if you don’t have the team available to take advantage of it?

That’s another thing, many of these SIEM systems are large, complex, technically difficult to deploy and manage, policy is hard to apply and you need someone “driving it” constantly. Probably a team of people.

Many customers are not even sure that they are collecting all the logs they should be, as there is no mechanism to check the log collection capability to ensure collection, or the secure encryption of those logs in transit. Or worse still, they simply can’t afford to collect all the logs because the SIEM vendor charges by the GB.

The other major issue I see in the market is that many companies don’t have a SIEM – they have three! Consolidating these systems, sending the same logs to multiple destinations (including their MSSP partner) is almost impossible. Migration from one platform to another is hard and the vendor has locked you in because you are using their tool to collect the logs. Dammit!

Maybe your company is mid-size, growing, but not yet on the Fortune 2000 list. You still need to comply with regulation but cant afford the bells, whistles and promises of the big SIEM vendors or the expensive and skilled staff to manage these systems.  What do you do then? You need a SIEM alternative.

And so this brings us back to the original question. Why do you need (another) SIEM?

Maybe you don’t.

A very good Centralized Log Management platform (CLM) like Snare can give you all the core capability you need from SIEM at a fraction of the price and use a fraction of the resources. A good CLM can also add extra advanced functionality like File and Registry Monitoring (FIM & RIM) and Database Activity Monitoring (DAM) as well. You might even be able to rationalise some vendors with a good CLM like Snare and avoid vendor lock-in if you ever want to change.

So before you read the next “buyers guide” to selecting a SIEM – brought to you by “insert vendor here” have a look at a really good CLM platform like Snare as a SIEM alternative.

 

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Snare’s Commitment to Security 

Snare’s Commitment to Security

 

In light of recent malicious activities by foreign actors, we seek to ensure our Snare customers, partners, and prospects that we are are committed to providing the most secure platform we can based on the primary pillars of cybersecurity:

 

C. Confidentiality.

I. Integrity.

A. Availability.

 

Our customers must authenticate to get their software and license downloads – we do not issue software. The software is downloaded over encrypted channels after the customer has authenticated to the customer portal.

 

We harden the software stack for the Snare Agents and Snare Central software so they do what they need to and nothing else.

 

We do not use third party software such as .Net or Java in the agent software to minimize its footprint to potential vulnerabilities.

 

We contain our own micro web server in the agents that only does what it needs to do, as they don’t need a full stack web server.

 

We use separation of duties – The Security admin can control the agent and Snare Central policy, not the SysAdmin, to ensure that policies are set and logs are collected.

 

We watch the watcher – Snare Agents audit and log local user changes and activity to customers’ systems and the Snare software itself.

 

We have independent third party verification being Veracode Verified status for our Snare Windows Agent and Snare Agent Manager.

 

We mask sensitive data via the Snare reflector and our Snare Database Activity Monitoring (DAM) solutions to ensure that the logging system is not storing sensitive data when there are regional PII related compliance needs.

 

We provide over the wire encryption using TLS for web access, for sending logs, and mutual authentication options when both ends need to be validated to ensure that the log data is kept private on the network.

 

We provide destination failover using options like DNS updates to change the destination logs are being sent to.

 

We are committed to providing you the most secure platform possible. Share with us your ideas.

 

 

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Digital Transformation of Retail and the Increased Risk of Cyber Attacks

Big Retail = A Honey Pot of Data

The retail industry is a high value target for cyber attacks, simply due to the transactional nature of the business. The large numbers of financial transactions means that there is a honey pot of data and countless opportunities for cyber criminals to steal sensitive customer information.

Online transactions, Point of Sale (POS) systems, and retail environments where there are transient workforces and high staff turnover simply equals increased risk. And far too often, POS systems run on old systems with no Malware protection and sometimes unpatched operating systems. Big retailers with operations that include a large numbers of stores, hundreds of POS systems, fragmented procurement, and multiple distribution centers are attractive environments for a cyber criminal or criminals planning an attack.

To further the risk of an attack or breach, many retailers also outsource their IT or cyber security capabilities to third parties – which means retail organizations need to (seriously) consider supply chain security as well.

Review our other blog on this topic here.

Preventing eCommerce Cyber Attacks – It’s all about the Benjamins

The threats of cyber attacks for retail companies are very clear and unfortunately abundant, from the introduction of Malware to steal financial data, unauthorized insiders gaining access to private systems and databases, to the creation of fraudulent transactions and routing money to other destinations. It’s all about the Benjamins baby.

A high profile example of the risks in retail comes from Forever 21 in 2017. A large number of the company’s POS systems were infected with Malware for nearly seven months, enabling cyber criminals to steal credit card data that had been stored in the logs of completed transactions. Forever 21 reported that the Malware obtained the shoppers’ card number, expiration date, internal verification code – and in some cases also cardholders’ names.

Another well known name that has fallen foul of cyber attack(s) is Macy’s. An investigation into the 2019 breach of Macys.com found that the attack was linked to a website that stole customer payment data on the “Checkout” and “My Wallet” pages. Macy’s was also attacked in 2018. That breach allowed criminals access to sensitive credit and debit card information, names, and birthdays of “a small number” of Macys.com and Bloomingdales.com customers.

Right now, as business across the globe becomes increasingly more digital and as eCommerce continues to expand – particularly as COVID-19 has kept consumers at home and driven them to shop almost exclusively online – the reality is that digital retailers simply cannot operate without prioritizing cyber security.

Protecting Credit Card Transactions

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is an information security standard for any company that handles credit card payments.

Among the requirements for achieving PCI compliance is the ability to monitor access to systems and any activity on the network, ensuring that encryption and perimeter security is active, restricting access to data and systems, and requiring the use of strong passwords. Monitoring and reporting are key requirements for PCI DSS.

“The PCI DSS security requirements apply to all system components included in or connected to the cardholder data environment. The cardholder data environment (CDE) is comprised of people, processes and technologies that store, process, or transmit cardholder data or sensitive authentication data. “System components” include network devices, servers, computing devices, and applications. 

Examples of system components include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Systems that provide security services (for example, authentication servers), facilitate segmentation (for example, internal firewalls), or may impact the security of (for example, name resolution or web redirection servers) the CDE.
  • Virtualization components such as virtual machines, virtual switches/routers, virtual appliances, virtual applications/desktops, and hypervisors.
  • Network components including but not limited to firewalls, switches, routers, wireless access points, network appliances, and other security appliances.
  • Server types including but not limited to web, application, database, authentication, mail, proxy, Network Time Protocol (NTP), and Domain Name System (DNS).
  • Applications including all purchased and custom applications, including internal and external (for example, Internet) applications.
  • Any other component or device located within or connected to the CDE.

Reference Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Version 3.2.1 May 2018

Log Management & Cyber Security

Logging mechanisms and the ability to track user activities are critical for effective forensics and vulnerability management. The presence of logs in all environments allows thorough tracking and analysis if something goes wrong. Determining the cause of a compromise is very difficult without system activity logs.

Effective log collection & management will allow you to:

  • Implement audit trails to link all access to system components to each individual user.
  • Implement automated audit trails for all system components for reconstructing these events: all individual user accesses to cardholder data; all actions taken by any individual with root or administrative privileges; access to all audit trails; invalid logical access attempts; use of and changes to identification and authentication mechanisms (including creation of new accounts, elevation of privileges), and all changes, additions, deletions to accounts with root or administrative privileges; initialization, stopping or pausing of the audit logs; creation and deletion of system-level objects.
  • Record audit trail entries for all system components for each event, including at a minimum: user identification, type of event, date and time, success or failure indication, origination of event, and identity or name of affected data, system component or resource.
  • Use time synchronization technology, synchronize all critical system clocks and times, and implement controls for acquiring, distributing, and storing time.
  • Secure audit trails so they cannot be altered.
  • Review logs and security events for all system components to identify anomalies or suspicious activity. Perform critical log reviews at least daily.
  • Retain audit trail history for at least one year; at least three months of history must be immediately available for analysis

One of the key requirements is not just collecting log data on these activities but also having the ability to review it daily as required by the regulation. Snare makes this easy by providing out-of-the-box capability to generate the appropriate reports needed to be compliance for PCI DSS.

Further to this capability Snare can also provide Database Activity Monitoring (DAM) to ensure that application level controls are not bypassed and direct database access is used instead, and both File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) and Registry Integrity Monitoring (RIM) to ensure that changes made to key files or suspicious registry activity (including the installation of malicious applications) is detected.

Make sure you also check out our best practices white paper for PCI DSS here.

Need to get your log management solution in place?

Reach out to our team. We work with over 4,000 customers across the world to help manage logs and prevent the types of costly and damaging cyber security breaches referenced in this article.

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