Security information and event management (SIEM) systems became indispensable tools for detecting, reporting, and mitigating vulnerabilities and cyber threats. From comprehensive security monitoring to analyzing user activities, SIEM solutions help address diverse security challenges.
What are the common SIEM use cases in modern enterprise security? And how can they be integrated with other security solutions? We asked our security experts to share their practices and gathered answers in the article.
What is the role of SIEM in modern cybersecurity?
Security information and event management is designed to provide a comprehensive view of the company's security posture. SIEM aggregates, correlates, and analyzes an organization's security information sources to uncover potential threats. Scanning all the endpoints, infrastructure, and applications, it alerts about suspicious activity for further investigation. The key SIEM use cases are to detect unusual behavior patterns, facilitate rapid responses to security incidents, and support adherence to compliance requirements.
The market offers a wide range of SIEM tools, each with its own functions and capabilities. But all of them have these three cores:
- Log management that enables the collection of event logs across an organization to detect anomalies.
- Event correlation that helps analyze aggregated data to identify patterns, uncovering potential breaches that isolated events might not reveal.
- Incident response and monitoring that ensure continuous system oversight, providing centralized analysis, real-time alerts, and automated responses, following rules set by the security operations center (SOC).
These core functionalities lay the foundation for a wide range of practical applications. Let's explore some key SIEM use cases that demonstrate how these capabilities address real-world cybersecurity challenges.
Top 10 SIEM use cases for enhanced cybersecurity
We asked our security experts to share how they apply security information and event management tools in their daily practice. They highlighted these top SIEM use cases:
1. Intrusion detection and prevention
SIEM tools play a key role in analyzing network traffic and system activities to identify unauthorized access and intrusion attempts. By correlating data from diverse sources, they detect suspicious patterns to indicate attacks. Once an intrusion is uncovered, SIEM solutions trigger alerts and initiate automated responses to prevent unauthorized access and mitigate threats in real time.
SIEM leverages its advanced capabilities to address various intrusive threats. For example:
- Account takeovers: Identifies compromised accounts through anomalies in login behavior, such as access from unfamiliar devices or locations.
- Malware infections: Detects malicious processes or files by monitoring abnormal behavior on endpoints and systems.
- Ransomware attacks: Identifies suspicious file encryption activities or other behaviors indicating ransomware infections.
- Brute-force attacks: Flags repeated failed login attempts or unauthorized access attempts to protect against credential stuffing or password-guessing.
- Privilege escalation: Monitors for unauthorized changes in user permissions, indicating potential exploitation.
- Malicious scripted attacks: Detects unauthorized script executions, often used for targeted system compromise.
2. Compliance support
SIEM systems help organizations ensure adherence to standards like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. Our security experts note that regulatory compliance is one of the critical use cases where SIEM tools effectively address. They enable companies to prepare for audits by maintaining detailed records of security events, detecting and responding to potential violations in real time, and providing tools to demonstrate adherence to regulations.
3. Data exfiltration prevention
Data exfiltration is an unauthorized data transfer from an organization's systems to an external location, often carried out manually or via malware by malicious actors. SIEM solutions play a critical role in detecting and preventing such activities by identifying compromised credentials, monitoring command-and-control communications, analyzing abnormal user behavior, and detecting unusual encryption activities. These capabilities highlight key use cases for SIEM, such as facilitating automated responses to threats, including isolating affected devices and blocking malicious IPs in real time.
4. Lateral movement detection
Lateral movement is any activity that allows hackers to navigate deeper into a system to access high-value assets. SIEM solutions help detect this behaviour by leveraging predefined correlations and threat intelligence integration. Our engineers also integrate threat intelligence tools to detect malware communication with control servers. This is one of the many SIEM use cases examples that help mitigate lateral movements throughout IT systems more efficiently.
5. Insider threat detection
Insider threats arise when trusted individuals misuse their access or have their accounts compromised by cybercriminals. SIEM solutions help address them by gathering and correlating data from diverse network sources, including user activity, system, and network logs. Through real-time monitoring, behavioral analysis, and integration with threat intelligence, SIEMs detect suspicious activity and enable swift responses to mitigate insider risks.
6. Network anomaly detection
Network monitoring is one of the key SIEM use cases, as these tools enable unusual pattern detection. They can reveal threats such as DDoS attacks or network scans by identifying deviations from normal network behavior. These tools alert security teams and provide detailed insights into the nature and scope of anomalies, empowering timely and effective responses to mitigate potential risks.
7. IoT security
SIEM use cases also span the protection of IoT devices, which often lack robust built-in security and are particularly vulnerable to attacks. It enhances IoT security by aggregating data from IoT devices to detect anomalies, such as unexpected communication with external servers, unusual traffic patterns, or attempts to access restricted areas. SIEM tools can also be integrated with IoT-specific tools for advanced threat analytics and automated responses, such as isolating compromised devices. 
8. VPN security monitoring
VPNs are often used to secure employee communication. However, attackers can exploit them using stolen credentials, allowing unauthorized access to sensitive data. SIEM tools enhance VPN security by monitoring all connection logs and identifying users and IP addresses behind each request. Our security engineers use SIEM tools to cross-check previous connection times and IPs, correlating them with geographic data from trusted third-party services to detect anomalies and potential threats.
9. Cloud-based applications security
SIEM systems enhance the security of cloud-based applications by offering comprehensive visibility into user activities and access patterns. Among other SIEM security use cases, these tools play a key role in cloud security monitoring by tracking and analyzing activities across cloud environments. Our security engineers integrate cloud service providers' tools like AWS CloudTrail or Azure Security Center with SIEM solutions to collect logs more precisely and provide actionable insights.
10. Advanced security methods integration
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence amplify SIEM technology to detect advanced security threats with unparalleled accuracy. These technologies process vast datasets to uncover patterns that reveal sophisticated attacks, such as advanced persistent threats (APTs). By integrating behavioral analytics, SIEMs differentiate between normal user behavior and malicious activity, even when attackers attempt to mimic legitimate actions.
Read more: Machine learning in cybersecurity explained: Key use cases and tips
Integration with endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools is one of the common SIEM use cases. Together, they provide a unified view of the attack surface, enhancing threat visibility and enabling rapid containment and remediation. Customizable dashboards and detailed reports deliver actionable insights, enabling security teams to mitigate threats more quickly and effectively.
How N-iX can help you with SIEM?
SIEM is vital for cybersecurity, offering centralized visibility, real-time threat detection, and streamlining regulatory compliance. N-iX empowers businesses by implementing SIEM solutions, optimizing their security operations, and ensuring robust protection for both on-premises and cloud environments. Our security engineers successfully delivered more than 100 security projects and strengthened defences for client companies of different sizes and industries, including finance, healthcare, telecom, etc.
With a deep understanding of SIEM capabilities and use cases, we help organizations integrate them with other next-gen security technologies, along with existing security practices. N-iX also adheres to international security protocols like ISO 9001, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, SOC, CyberGRX, GDPR, and others, to help clients keep their data, applications, and infrastructure protected.
If you are looking for a reliable cybersecurity partner with extensive SIEM expertise, we are ready to help you. Reach out to us to discover how we can elevate your protection methods and secure your assets!
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