User Behavior Analytics (UBA) uses machine learning to build up a picture of a user’s usual habits and activity. If a user begins to deviate from their usual behavior, UBA solutions can identify and flag the abnormal behavior. It may be that the behavior is innocent, or it could indicate that an account has been hacked and that your network is compromised.
UBA solutions have progressed a great deal over the past few years. Advances in machine learning have allowed UBA solutions to make sense of the vast amounts of data that they have access to. This results in a comprehensive and effective means of identifying suspicious behavior.
It is important that your solution has access to as much data as possible – this will give it the greatest insight into network events. You will also want a solution with a clear dashboard that allows you to get timely notifications regarding network activities, and from which you can also manage remediation procedures.
In this article, we’ll consider the top user behavior analytics solutions currently on the market. We will highlight their key features, before suggesting who they would be ideally suited for. Across this list, we will identify solutions for a number of use cases, highlighting key players, as well as emerging solutions and providers.
Cynet is a threat detection and response company based in Boston, MA. Cynet 360 AutoXDR is their automated, end-to-end security platform that allows users to automatically identify and remediate attacks on their network. Part of this platform, Cynet’s UBA capabilities allow you to monitor behavior and identify suspicious or compromised accounts.
Cynet 360 AutoXDR Features:
Expert Insights’ Comments: Cynet 360 AutoXDR is a comprehensive solution with a range of tools and capabilities. The platform is very reliable, ensuring that your organization is protected from common and zero-day threats. We would recommend Cynet 360 AutoXDR for smaller organizations looking for a reliable UBA solution as part of a wider threat hunting and remediation platform.
Based in Foster City, CA, Exabeam is a cybersecurity management and control provider. Exabeam Fusion SIEM is a SIEM solution that incorporates log management, behavioral analytics, and automated threat detection, investigation, and response. The solution is controlled from a single interface, from which admins can monitor behavior and event logs, investigate alerts, and configure automated workflows.
Exabeam Fusion SIEM Features:
Expert Insights’ Comments: Exabeam Fusion SIEM is an advanced solution that gives you a good insight into UBA across your network. The solution grants you granular control over configuration and management. It’s real-time threat detection capabilities allow organizations to respond quickly, thereby reducing the potential for harm. We would recommend this solution for larger enterprise organizations that are looking for an effective UBA tool that will enhance their network security.
Fortinet is a technology provider based in Sunnyvale, CA. They have developed a wide range of effective and technically capable solutions across network security, zero trust access, and cloud security. FortiInsight Cloud is a tool for monitoring, detecting, and responding to network events and user behaviors.
Fortinet FortiInsight Cloud Features:
Expert Insights’ Comments: Fortinet’s UBA solution provides organizations with useful, actionable insights of network events and suspicious behavior. This, alongside the effective integration with your SIEM solution, results in a comprehensive additional layer of security. We would recommend FortiInsights for medium to large organizations that require a robust solution that can identify a range of suspicious behaviors before they develop into full threats.
Gurucul has developed several next-gen security operations and analytics platforms, including XDR, SIEM, IAM, and UEBA solutions. Their solutions use ML behavior profiling to generate accurate risk-scores for network events, then identify and predict data breaches or attacks. Gurucul’s dedicated UEBA solution can enhance your ability to detect threats through comprehensive user behavior profiles and risk scoring.
Gurucul UEBA Features:
Expert Insights’ Comments: Gurucul’s UEBA is an effective and technically advanced solution that gives you deep analysis of any deviations from a user’s normal behavior, thereby allowing you to prevent account misuse. The platform can ingest high volumes of data from across your whole network, ensuring that analysis capabilities are thorough and detailed. We would recommend this solution for medium sized organizations that are looking for a comprehensive tool to manage and log all their cyber events, as well as gain an insight into user behavior.
IBM is a multi-national technology company that provides a comprehensive range of cyber tools. IBM’s User Behavior Analytics module is an add-on to their QRadar SIEM solution. The add-on uses AI and ML to identify any behavior that is anomalous and worth further investigation. Through this accurate and astute analysis, malicious actors can be identified quickly and dwell time can be reduced.
IBM QRadar SIEM User Behavior Analytics Features:
Expert Insights’ Comments: IBM’s QRadar SIEM is a comprehensive threat intelligence solution. The User Behavior Analytics module gives organizations extended visibility and understanding of how users are behaving whilst connected. It also adds a layer of security to your post-attack analysis capabilities – you can identify the actions that a malicious actor has taken whilst on the network. We recommend IBM’s QRadar SIEM for mid-market organizations and larger enterprises looking for UBA as part of a wider, holistic analysis of network events.
LogRhythm has developed a series of cloud monitoring and response solutions. Their UEBA solution, an add-on to the LogRhythm SIEM, utilizes ML to identify suspicious behavior or events and protect your network. This solution acts as an extra layer of defense, giving you greater ability to detect the early stages of cyberattacks and compromised accounts.
LogRhythm SIEM UEBA Features:
Expert Insights’ Comments: LogRhythm SIEM and its add-on UEBA capabilities are highly configurable, empowering you to gain network visibility with a focus on the issues specific to your organization. The GUI is streamlined and the high levels of customization allow you to make granular changes and gain insights into your network. We would recommend LogRhythm UEBA for small to medium sized organizations that want to enhance their SIEM solution through UEBA.
Defender is Microsoft’s suite of threat prevention, detection, and response tools. Defender for Identity monitors Active Directory signals to identify, detect, and investigate threats, compromised identities, and malicious insider actions. Defender achieves this by using ML to build a baseline understanding of user behavior, then mapping this with real-time behavior.
Microsoft Defender For Identity Features:
Expert Insights’ Comments: Microsoft Defender For Identities is a well-regarded solution that provides continuous and comprehensive user and threat monitoring. The solution also ensures that credentials are stored securely, preventing them from being used in an account compromise attack. The solution is quick to implement and easy to configure – this gives admins a good level of control over how the solution operates within your workplace. We recommend Defender For Identities as a strong UBA solution for any organization operating a Windows environment.
Rapid7 is a Boston, MA, based technology company that specializes in network visibility, analytics, and automation solutions. InsightIDR is Rapid7’s XDR and SIEM platform that monitors and manages cyber events to keep your network safe.
Rapid7 InsightIDR Features:
Expert Insights’ Comments: The Rapid7 Insight platform is a comprehensive solution that gives organizations visibility and control over their network, allowing them to protect their accounts, users, and data. The solution is, in essence, an XDR platform, meaning that it has extensive automation and incident resolution features. The UBA capabilities enhance the accuracy of the platform, allowing suspicious behavior to be identified sooner. We would recommend Rapid7 InsightsIDR for mid-market organizations that want a fully featured yet cost-effective security solution and may benefit from the managed detection and response service offered by Rapid7 as an add-on.
Securonix is a threat detection and response solution that is powered through intelligent data analysis. The solution leverages user and entity behavioral analytics (UEBA) to add context to alerts, reduce noise, prioritize remediation activities, and ensure that mitigation is precise.
Securonix Next-Gen SIEM Features:
Expert Insights’ Comments: Securonix is a single-platform SIEM solution that gives you greater visibility into your network and the events that occur on it. The UBA capabilities are enhanced by powerful AI and ML, allowing the solution to detect anomalies with greater accuracy and efficiency. We would recommend Securonix for medium to large organizations that would benefit from a reliable solution with comprehensive remediation and management features.
Software development company, Splunk, is based in San Francisco, CA, and provides a unified security and observability platform to improve your organization’s security posture. Splunk’s UBA tool is an add-on to Splunk’s SIEM solution. The solution enhances your network security by identifying threats that would be missed by tools like firewalls and filters.
Splunk User Behavior Analytics Features:
Expert Insights’ Comments: Splunk’s UBA solution is easy to implement, allowing you to enhance your security posture to identify suspicious behavior without much hassle. We would recommend Splunk UBA for medium to large organizations who are looking to gain critical data into their network and behavioral events and are already using Splunk’s other security tools.
User Behavior Analytics solutions work by collecting user information and building up a picture of regular behavior. This baseline includes information such as where a user usually logs in from (geographically and by device), their usual work hours, who they usually interact with, what tasks they usually undertake, etc. This gives the solution a comprehensive understanding of each user’s behavior, allowing them to identify a user based on the actions they take.
If a UBA solution encounters a user who is acting differently from their behavior baseline – e.g., someone logging in from a different device, contacting accounts they would not usually, or attempting to access files that aren’t related to their job role – it flags that activity as suspicious.
The UBA solution will assign a risk score to this event, then decide if the account should be suspended, if an admin should be notified, or apply another remediation action as per admin-defined policies.
UBA solutions use ML and AI, which means that they are constantly evolving and improving their analysis. The more data they are able to gather, the more accurate their user identification can be.
UBA solutions allow you to add an extra layer of contextual security to your accounts. Rather than relying on static policies that could be bypassed or fooled, UBA solutions are constantly at work and constantly improving. It doesn’t matter if a user is accessing a restricted environment or not, their behavior will be logged to ensure they are who they say they are.
Other benefits of UBA include:
UEBA stands for User and Entity Behavior Analytics. This works in a very similar way to UBA, though offers a slightly expanded range of capabilities. As well as monitoring and analyzing the behavior of users, UEBA solutions monitor entity behavior. Entities include things like routers, servers, and endpoints. By monitoring these entities, you can identify if they are operating normally, or if they might have been compromised. In short, UEBA monitors the behavior of humans and machines, to identify suspicious behavior, whereas UBA only analyzes human behavior.
In some cases, UEBA might refer to User and Event Behavior Analytics.
Alex is an experienced journalist and content editor. He researches, writes, factchecks and edits articles relating to B2B cyber security and technology solutions, working alongside software experts. Alex was awarded a First Class MA (Hons) in English and Scottish Literature by the University of Edinburgh.
Laura Iannini is an Information Security Engineer. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cybersecurity from the University of West Florida. Laura has experience with a variety of cybersecurity platforms and leads technical reviews of leading solutions. She conducts thorough product tests to ensure that Expert Insights’ reviews are definitive and insightful.