Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) includes Security Information Management (SIM) and Security Event Management (SEM). Likewise, the applications and networks produce real-time analysis of security alerts. Additionally, there are many open-source SIEM tools available.
SIM assembles, tracks, and analyzes security-specific data in a central repository. So, the data is used for trend analysis.
SEM is a network-specific event administration process. It carries out threat analysis in real-time, response to incidents, and visualization. Moreover, they play a vital role in identifying cyberattacks and offer real-time analysis of security alerts.
The best SIEM tools have log management as one of their features. That’s because log files help detect threats with a high degree of accuracy. Free and Open-source SIEM tools are popular now among organizations looking to ramp up security.
Let’s closely examine some of the best open-source SIEM tools available today.
1. AlienVault OSSIM
OSSIM is one of the most comprehensive tools available for threat detection. It helps in event collection, normalization, and correlation. Also, it offers monitoring capabilities and logging facilities for the short term and threat evaluation for the long term. Additionally, designers built its automation into the system.
So, OSSIM is a single unified platform and offers highly valuable security abilities such as:
- Asset discovery
- Behavioral monitoring
- Detecting intrusion
- SIEM event links
- Assessment of vulnerability
Some of the important features offered by the tool are
- Operates virtually and on-premise
- Can run on a single server
- Community support available
- Ongoing development offered adds to its value
It has low flexibility and involves a labor-intensive setup.
2. Sagan
Another open-source SIEM, Sagan is a high-performance open-source tool designed for detailed analysis. It works under various operating systems. The key features are:
- It is highly compatible with popular security consoles that are graphical-based.
- Lightweight CPU and memory resources make it easy to set up and maintain.
- Carry out data exportation from other SIEM tools.
- Also, can track the geographic component of any event, allowing you to attach a location to every incident.
- Monitors the time of events
- Additionally, you can set specific criteria for alerts. It prevents false alert issues.
3. io
Logit is an affordable ELK-HOSTED SIEM tool. The ELK Stack comprises multiple complimentary SIEM offerings. Additionally, ELK also plays a critical role in the architecture supporting OSSEC. Moreover, with SIEM as a Service, Logit.io offers all the vital components needed for organizations to secure operations at affordable rates. Also, Logit has proven to be an ideal solution for scalable event management and security information. So, the key features are:
- Advanced access controls that are role-based
- Fast deployment
- Multiple integrations
- Affordable SIEM
- Correlates to events
- Scheduled reports
- Alerting & notifications
4. Apache Metron
Apache Metron—recommended for organizations concerned about Big Data security. The scalable advanced security analytics framework helps detect cyber anomalies. Also, it equips organizations with the ability to respond rapidly to any irregularities. Likewise, the key features are:
- SOC Analyst helps identify potential alerts.
- SOC Investigator detects triage anomalies.
- SOC Manager automatically creates cases with integrated workflow systems.
- Forensic Investigators carry out evidence collection responses in real-time.
- Also, Security Platform Engineer is a platform for managing the integration and processing of cyber data.
5. Splunk Free
As the name suggests, Spunk Free is the free version of the famous Splunk Enterprise. This comprehensive SIEM tool offers several features to keep your business operations secure. You can index up to 500MB of data daily with lifetime access. You can sign up for the paid version if the data size needs expansion.
Splunk features Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, making it a versatile tool. It is designed to address threats intelligently. The key features are:
- Highly efficient alerting
- Helps deploy management capabilities
- Additionally, offers index clustering
6. Security Onion
Security Onion is a Linux distribution. It is designed to detect intrusion and for highly effective Enterprise Security Monitoring (ESM). Likewise, Security Onion is a flexible tool offering host-based and network-based Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS). It also offers Full Packet Capture (FPC). So, this tool is highly recommended if you are looking for a tool that prioritizes threat hunting and enterprise security monitoring. Moreover, it can be used in several capacities.
- Collects network events from various tools to complete coverage of your organization’s network.
- Additionally, supports host-based event collection agents.
- Can be used for swift analysis and for carrying out case studies.
- Also, it operates with various types of agents.
7. Graylog
A log management platform designed to garner data from different locations across any network infrastructure. Additionally, the platform has a user-friendly interface, comes with unique functionalities, and is scalable. Moreover, the key features are:
- Offers customizable dashboards that allow users to choose the desired metrics or data sources for monitoring and analyzing.
- Has a built-in fault tolerance for running multi-threaded searches and analyzing many potential threads at the same time.
Conclusion
So, the tools discussed above come with fundamental security information and event management capabilities. They also take care of functions like log collection, alert threat detection, and incident response. They are all open-source tools and are available for the public to use. Likewise, a few of them are flexible to allow you to make any modifications.
