The more data you have, the more insight and knowledge you possess, right? But what happens when your data stores grow so large that securing and managing them effectively is no longer in the cards? A few extra gigabytes here and terabytes there, and before you know it, you’ve got a big security data problem. Every new security control that’s put in place to protect data adds administrative burden—increasing the security event data that must be monitored, logged, shared between security components, analyzed, and reported on.
Security information and event management (SIEM) systems were invented to help IT security teams within financial services companies, health care providers, defense contractors, and governments address the growing volumes of information security data. An onslaught of well-publicized data breaches followed by public outrage and a surge of regulatory mandates quickly made SIEM must-have technology.
The point product feeding binge
As corporate security officers scrambled to address these issues, virtualization bred even more data and applications that had to be secured and reported on. Companies added new security products—each bringing its own instrumentation and logging requirements. The volume of security data and real-time data streams grew exponentially until SIEM solutions bogged down. Some security teams started turning off SIEM data feeds in an effort to preserve performance. Unfortunately, each disabled data feed created another vulnerability and exposed the enterprise to greater risks.
Time for a big security data fitness plan
So how do you deal with big security data even as your business tightens its belt?
Today you need more relational information about the source, asset, user, and data to provide greater security context and situational awareness. You also need real-time correlation of this information with event flows—including scalable architecture that can keep pace with big security data’s growth.
Add Muscle, Lose Fat
Legacy SIEM solutions don’t have the power to handle big security data. Today, you need a SIEM that includes high-performance architecture to handle reams of security data and easily scales to handle future growth. In other words, you need McAfee Enterprise Security Manager (formerly NitroView). This SIEM powerhouse is specifically built for big security data with a powerful database, appliance options, and the processing power to quickly correlate billions of events and flows.
Boost Your SIEM IQ
The next generation of SIEMs must go beyond simple event analysis to share security intelligence among security components and quickly deliver actionable information. McAfee Enterprise Security Manager achieves this by immediately collecting and analyzing contextual information on events, users, and data, creating and sharing situational awareness among solution components.
McAfee Global Threat Intelligence further strengthens dynamic threat visibility, providing around-the-clock reputation-based threat intelligence and sharing this insight through integration among solution components.
McAfee Risk Advisor uses this shared information to help you quickly pinpoint attacks and implement countermeasures.
Achieve Balance and Agility
Big security data requires security tool integration and enterprise-wide visibility. Two-way integration with McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) software extends visibility and control across your entire security and compliance environment.
Just like any fitness plan, SIEM requires effort and dedication. It gets easier over time and results become an excellent motivator.
By Eric Schou
