User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) solutions are tools that use ML to understand the behavior of users and entities (like servers and endpoints) within a network to detect anomalies and suspicious activity. UEBA can build a comprehensive understanding of normal behaviour, which makes it easier to identify anomalies and malicious activities. If anything unusual is detected, the solution will flag the event with admin teams for further inspection.
UEBA is an effective security tool as it tracks, monitors, and alerts admin teams to anomalous behavior that would be hard for a SOC to detect. IT teams are often overstretched, having to sift through hundreds and thousands of alerts per day. UEBA solutions are so useful as they collate and then analyse data. This means that anomalous events are quickly flagged, allowing your SOC team to focus on the most important issues.
In this article we’ll explore the top 10 UEBA solutions, in each case highlighting their key features and suggesting who they are most suitable for. Some of the solutions are dedicated UEBA tools, while others are integrated with a SIEM product.
Crowdstrike’s UEBA solution is a highly robust solution that unites endpoint data with UEBA to identify potential and hidden threats within your network. By using ML to analyse behavior, the tool creates baseline profiles. Notable features include mathematical probability analytics to predict areas with significant risk. You can also modify authentication and access experiences through the tool’s behavioral risk assessments. The solution is a quick one to deploy and manage, working as an add-on in the cloud. It offers outlook web access profiling, highlights instances of password guessing, and flags instances of lateral movement.
Expert Insights’ Comments: The solution is fast and powerful, with an ability to rapidly correlate data and intelligence from millions of endpoints and entities. Machine learning collects information from users, machines, IP addresses, servers to analyze events and behavior. The solution’s ability to create ML backed risk scores and prioritise threats makes this a practical and effective tool. Crowdstrike Micro Focus Interset UEBA is robust yet not overly complex, and we would recommend the solution for medium sized businesses.
The Cynet Autonomos XDR platform provides adaptive prevention, detection, correlation, investigation, and response capabilities. The solution is complimented by a reliable, 24/7 MDR service. The platform is a fully stacked data security solution, with UEBA capabilities one part of this. The platform can collect and correlate data from sources within your network and enhance it through forensics and a centralized log management system.
Expert Insights’ Comments: Cynet Cybersecurity Platform offers extensive visibility and can collate data from a vast variety of sources within your environment, including both user and entity-based data and activity. The solution collects and correlates this data to identify anything suspicious or anomalous. The platform is operated as an MDR service, meaning that you have access to support and attack remediation 24/7. Cynet’s MDR SOC team are effective and quick to respond to active threats and carry out remediation efforts. We would recommend the Cynet Cybersecurity Platform for medium to large organizations looking to implement a cohesive and consolidated security solution that includes UEBA.
Forcepoint Behavior Analytics is a powerful tool that offers extensive visibility, contextualized analytics, automation of responses, and high levels of customization. It provides contextualized SIEM data to enhance the UEB analysis. Admins can track and analyze user and entity behavior across the entire network, including understanding relationships between users. This results in a risk score that indicates how risky a user is. The solution provides advanced analytics feature such as audit guidance, information models, and baseline analytics models.
Expert Insights’ Comments: Forcepoint’s Behavioral Analytics is an effective and customizable solution. Admins can customize risk models that fit their organization’s risk appetite and for more accurate reporting via the UEBA tool. The platform can provide automated responses to combat active threats. By using ML and data analytics, the solution can provide extensive insights and reporting that allows admins to execute decisions faster. We would recommend Forcepoint Behavior Analytics for enterprises due to its robustness and complications while onboarding.
IBM have developed a comprehensive range of advanced hybrid-cloud solutions focused on cybersecurity and communications. Security QRadar is an extremely robust and effective integrated XDR and SIEM tool that offers UEBA capabilities. The platform allows you to streamline your workflow across your full environment, with extensive visibility and automation. The platform provides contextualized intelligence and regarding user and entity activity, allowing you to gain a complete understanding of network events. Deployment is flexible, with cloud, on-prem, or SaaS all available as options. The solution is also a highly scalable, ensuring that you always have visibility into user and entity behavior as your organization grows.
Expert Insights’ Comments: IBM security QRadar is an effective and robust solution that allows you to consolidate user and entity behavior analytics, network analysis, log management, threat intelligence, and AI-based investigations into a single solution. The platform can be run out-of-the-box, with purpose-built AI, pre-made playbooks, automatic root-cause analysis, and MITRE ATT&CK mapping for effective threat detection. For all of its presets, QRadar remains customizable with admins able to configure their own rules and workflows and tailer the solution to fit their organization. We would recommend IBM’s Security QRadar tool for large organizations looking to implement a feature rich SIEM solution that includes UEBA capabilities.
LogPoint UEBA, is an ML-based tool that scans and detects for anomalies in user behavior, or discrepancies in entities like automation and endpoints. It operates as a cloud-native add-on to LogPoint’s security platform. It is available for standalone purchase, or as part of the Logpoint cybersecurity platform, along with SIEM, SOAR, and endpoint security tools. The tool can group anomalies and events by behavioral characteristics including origin hosts, origin location, impacted hosts, authentication classification, and peer groups.
Expert Insights’ Comments: LogPoint’s UEBA solution is a powerful tool that offers effective threat detection capabilities. The AI and ML technology allows for a “finger on the buzzer” approach to helping your team detect and remediate issues as they arise. The platform’s functionality and customization is extensive, with teams able to configure dashboards, save searches, and address the tool’s AI engine rules and automated actions. We would recommend this solution for medium to large sized enterprise, especially to organizations looking to implement a more cohesive and integrated solution should they want to implement Logpoint’s unified security platform.
LogRhythm is a cybersecurity that specializes in next-gen SIEM, log management, forensics, security analytics, and UEBA solutions. Log Rhythm UEBA contextualizes anomalous user and entity behavior, providing actionable insights and automated responses for quick remediation.
The solution includes full-spectrum analytics which can detect and alert admins to both known and unknown threats. The solution uses ML and AI to detect, flag, and respond to threats with precision and speed.
Expert Insights’ Comments: LogRhythm UEBA is a highly intuitive, customizable, and comprehensive solution. It offers integrated playbooks, task automation, and guided workflows that ensure your response is accurate and appropriate. Visibility into network activity is supported through robust data visualizations that allow you direct access to any underlying data. It offers case management capabilities to centralize investigations, thereby allowing easy collaboration and more effective remediation. At each stage, admins are able to track remediation efforts and check the status of events. We would recommend the solution for MSPs and SMBs due to its high level of customizability and collaboration features.
ManageEngine Log360 is a fully integrated SIEM solution that also offers UEBA as part of the package. UEBA capabilities are supported through machine learning-based anomaly detection and a powerful incident management console where teams can view, track, and manage alerts from data collated from both user and entity behavior. The solution gathers logs from across your network, including user devices, network devices, servers, antivirus solutions, IPS solutions, firewalls, amongst others. Deployment is flexible, with cloud and on-prem both options offered.
Expert Insights’ Comments: The SIEM solution from ManageEngine is as proactive as it is reactive. It will monitor active directory changes in real-time, then create automatic auditor logs to ensure all relevant parties have visibility into security events. Alerts are sent in real time, allowing SOC or admins to be fully aware of active threats. The solution is easy to manage through a centralized dashboard that displays customizable graphs and reports. This interface highlights anomalies, attacks, and areas of potential risk that admins should be aware of. We would recommend the solution for SMBs and enterprise-level organizations looking to implement both UEBA and SIEM in a consolidated tool that handles and triages alerts and anomalous behavior.
Rapid7 InsightIDR is a unified solution of SIEM and XDR with UEBA capabilities. The cloud-native platform is lightweight and easy to deploy. The solution automatically collects and correlates user data and activity to create behavioral baselines. The platform is particularly adept at threat prevention thanks to its advanced detection library and continuous analysis. It is a highly scalable solution that can analyze data quickly, then provide teams with detailed timelines and playbooks.
Expert Insights’ Comments: Rapid7 InsightIDR is an effective tool for XDR, SIEM, and UEBA purposes. This range of capabilities effectively allows it to act as a proactive security center. The platform’s UEBA capacity offers fast and reliable analysis of user and entity activity across the network. This ensures that any risky behavior can be flagged immediately, and then resolved effectively. We would recommend Rapid7 InsightIDR for SMBs due to its general ease of use, particularly when onboarding and during initial deployment. It is also a good solution for organizations that need XDR functionality as well.
Securonix is known for their cloud-native security analytics solutions. Securonix UEBA is a cloud-based tool that is quick and simple to deploy. It’s a feature rich solution that provides effective security and can prevent insider threats, data loss or compromise, amongst other threats. The platform analyzes interactions and activity of all users, entities, and data within your network. This ability is powered by advanced machine learning and behavioral analytics techniques.
Expert Insights’ Comments: Securonix’s UEBA solution is designed to work effectively from the moment that it’s deployed. It offers out-of-box threat models, pre-built use cases, and built-in connectors, making it a suitable choice for a range of environments. The solution comes with a clean and intuitive interface that allows for easy and quick investigation and remediation. Securonix’s in-house support team can offer invaluable advice during management and onboarding. The platform is highly customizable, allowing admins to customize the out-of-the-box automated response playbooks or create their own workflows from scratch. We would recommend Securonix UEBA for SMBs due to its simplicity and seamless onboarding process.
The Varonis Data Security Platform is a consolidated security and UEBA tool that protects data through monitoring user and entity activity and detecting anomalies in real time. The solution assists admin in detecting and classifying anomalous behavior, remediating risk, and preventing data exposure. The platform collates data from across your network with sources that include user endpoints, file systems, storage units, security tools. It can monitor and report on unstructured and structured data The Varonis Data Security Platform is supported by an in-house global incident response team that will investigate abnormal activity if your organization does not have the resource to do so.
Expert Insights’ Comments: The Varonis Data Security Platform is a feature rich and fully integrated data security solution which offers effective UEBA insights. It provides data exposure graphs and proactive incident response, as well as managing automated remediation. It is a cloud-native solution, working well in most environments and is available on the AWS and Azure marketplaces. We would recommend the Varonis Data Security Platform for SMBs who may not have the resources to manage everything in-house, and would benefit from Varonis’ response team.
FAQs
UEBA vs UBA: What’s The Difference?
User behavior analytics (UBA) is a solution that tracks, collates, monitors, and analyzes user data and user activity within a network. UEBA is an extension of UBA, in that it carries out this analysis on entity data. Entities might include applications, devices, data, and servers connected to your network. In some cases, the “E” stands for event, making UEBA mean User and Event Behavior Analysis. These solutions work in the same way – they monitor all events that occur on a network to identify threats and peculiarities.
How Do UEBA Tools Work?
In order to operate effectively, UEBA solutions need to gather as much data as possible. If a user accesses the same few applications and usually downloads a few MBs of files, a UEBA solution can build a picture of normal behavior. These profiles will be compiled based on a user’s regular activity including details of frequency, privileges, work hours, and actions.
If a user begins to act abnormally (by accessing unusual applications and performing different actions), the UEBA solution will detect this and flag the activity. This type of anomalous activity could be an indicator of account takeover or compromised credentials that would need remediating.
Once data has been compiled, UEBA tools will use statistical models, rules, threat signatures, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to assess the data and understand threat. One of the benefits of UEBA is that it can monitor a wide range of threats, form external infiltration, to internal malicious actors.
What Are The Benefits Of UEBA?
- Effective and timely identification of threats on your network
- Ability to detect anomalies before they develop into threats
- Comprehensive visibility across your network gives you a good level of insight
- Comply with regulatory frameworks
- Rapid analysis of network events – this would not be possible for a human analyst to complete
- Automated response to eliminate risks effectively
- Identify compromised accounts
