What Are SIEM Solutions?

SIEM stands for “security information and event management”. These solutions enable you to collate and manage security information and events. They aggregate and analyze security and event data, making it easier for IT teams to identify anomalous behaviour that could indicate that their network has been breached. The best SIEM solutions don’t just offer logs of event data, they also carry out comprehensive analysis of the data, alert IT teams to unusual behavior, and provide them with detailed context of any security incidents that will help them identify the root cause of the incident. This data makes it much easier to carry out accurate remediation procedures. While SIEM tools themselves don’t usually offer incident response functionality, they often offer integrations with third-party tools (such as SOAR solutions) to help the IT and security team orchestrate remediation actions efficiently, based on data they’ve received from their SIEM tool.

How Does SIEM Software Work?

A SIEM solution deploys agents to aggregate log and event data from various sources across your organization’s IT environment, including networks, host systems, infrastructure, applications and endpoints, as well as third-party security tools. The agents forward this data to a central repository, where the platform normalizes it to make it easier for your security team to compare security information from different sources that may have originally been presented in different formats. Once normalized, the SIEM tool analyzes the security data in real-time to detect anomalous behaviors that could indicate the presence of a security threat. If suspicious behaviors are detected, the SIEM solution sends security alerts to your SOC team, along with contextual information that can help the team carry out a forensic investigation of those behaviors. This knowledge can help security teams remediate threats more quickly and effectively. As well as data aggregation, real-time monitoring and threat detection, the strongest SIEM tools provide security orchestration capabilities such as threat response workflow automation, which enable security teams to automate menial tasks so they can focus their human resource on active remediation. They sometimes also offer suggestions as to how a security team should respond to individual incidents, based on a risk assessment of each incident and a triaging process that prioritizes alerts according to their severity.

What Are The Limitations Of SIEM Systems?

While SIEM solutions have many benefits, there are also a few challenges that come with using one: Lengthy implementation processes. SIEM tools can take a long time to deploy because they have to integrate with each part of an organization’s IT infrastructure. Because of this, many smaller organizations—or those with less available security resource—choose to outsource their SIEM to a managed security services provider (MSSP), which takes care of the deployment and ongoing management of the solution for them. Alert fatigue caused by false positives. This challenge is often one faced by organizations that don’t give their SIEM solution feedback on the alerts it provides them, or those that haven’t configured the behavior profiles properly to reflect their IT environment. When properly configured, a SIEM tool should help to reduce false positives by assigning a risk score to each incident, and triaging incidents based on the threat they pose. Cost. The initial cost of a SIEM tool can be in the thousands of dollars, from purchasing the tool itself to paying the security staff to maintain it. While this cost is still significantly less than the average cost of a data breach—which currently stands at $4.62 million—some organizations may not be able to afford it all at once. These companies should consider investing in a SIEM solution as-a-Service, which allows them to pay for it via a regular subscription, or using an MSP or MSSP that will bundle SIEM services in with a wider security offering.

Who Can Benefit From SIEM?

The two main groups that would benefit from adopting a SIEM solution are larger, enterprise organizations and MSPs. As SIEMs make it easier to manage a network’s security status, and respond to incidents faster, they can be a valuable asset to enterprises. It is the size and amount of data to be processed that make SIEMs an effective solution. MSPs can also stand to benefit from having SIEM as it aggregates and prioritizes data from multiple sources. This is extremely helpful when managing multiple networks. MSPs can also use SIEM solutions to generate reports that detail all network data and intel. These reports can also deliver reporting on their customers’ compliance for auditing purposes when ask by regulatory bodies.

What Are The Key Features Of A SIEM Solution?

All modern SIEM solutions should enable security teams to detect and investigate threats, as well as automate incident response processes. But there are other features that you should look for in a SIEM solution, depending on your use case. These include: Visualization of threat intelligence and event data, to enable you to understand your attack surface more easily Incident triaging, to help you prioritize which incidents require attention most urgently Advanced machine learning-based analytics that identifies abnormal behavior across your environment Unlimited, quick log collection Data normalization, to make it easier for you to understand and compare data from different sources Threat response workflow automation, which enables you to automate menial tasks and focus on remediation

Should I Invest In A Cloud SIEM Solution Or An On-Prem SIEM Solution?

Many SIEM providers offer both on-premises and cloud deployment options, and it can be difficult to know which one to go with. There are a few areas to consider when making this decision: Deployment: It can be more difficult to deploy an on-premises solution, as it’s likely to take more time to integrate with your existing architecture. A cloud SIEM solution is quicker and easier to deploy, and the provider will often help you manage the deployment and ongoing maintenance of the platform. Control: On-premises SIEM solutions enable organizations to have full control over their own data. Cloud SIEM solutions, however, involve your company’s data being stored on the provider’s servers; this may be in their own cloud or in a public cloud. Some organizations are required by compliance regulations to keep a record of any data they store in the cloud, which can be time-consuming and may mean that an on-prem deployment is the better option. Scalability: On-premises solutions are often cheaper to deploy initially, but it can be difficult to upgrade them if your business grows or starts processing more data than you originally budgeted for. Cloud solutions are much easier to scale because they’re usually delivered on a subscription-based license and enable you to add or remove features as needed, with immediate effect. Accessibility: Cloud SIEM solutions are much easier for remote and hybrid teams to access than on-premises ones, as security teams can sign in to and manage the SIEM securely from anywhere, at any time. Updates: Organizations that invest in an on-premises SIEM solution are responsible for updating that solution themselves. Administering these updates can often be time-consuming and require you to pause log collection, resulting in down-time. Those that invest in cloud SIEM solutions needn’t worry about this, as updates are usually managed by the provider. Generally, if your business isn’t restricted by compliance and privacy requirements that require you to have certain controls over your data, we recommend that you invest in a cloud SIEM solution. But ultimately, you need to evaluate which of the above points are most important to your organization, and make your decision based on those factors.

What Are Some Of The Challenges Of Using A SIEM?

The main challenge when it comes to using a SIEM solution is navigating false alerts and reducing alert fatigue—the action of becoming desensitized to alerts because you’re constantly overwhelmed with false positives. To overcome this, you should look for a SIEM that gives you contextual information on each incident, enables you to configure custom log and alert rules to help reduce false positives, and assigns risk scores to each incident or offers triaging to help you prioritize your responses.

How Can You Implement A SIEM Tool?

There are a lot of things to think about when implementing a SIEM security solution. Here’s our checklist of actions that will help your SIEM implementation go more smoothly and ensure you set up your solution as effectively as possible: Scope your implementation. You need to understand what your use case is for using a SIEM solution, and outline how your organization should benefit from the deployment. That involves defining which logs the SIEM solution will monitor and which compliance requirements your chosen tool must support. Choose a deployment option. Most SIEM tools offer a variety of deployment options, including on-prem, cloud, SaaS, or any of the above but via an MSSP. The option you choose will depend on your budget, available security resource, ability to manage the solution in-house, and need for control over data residency. Configure correlation rules. SIEM software usually comes with pre-configured correlation rules that outline “normal” and “abnormal” behaviors, but your security team should check and fine-tune these to your environment to help mitigate the risk of false positives. Identify compliance requirements. You should already have checked that your chosen SIEM solution supports any compliance requirements that your businesses needs to adhere to but, once you’ve implemented your solution, you need to configure your reports to provide dashboards on the necessary compliance standards in real-time. Fine-tune your setup. You should regularly fine-tune your SIEM configurations to help the solution learn what behaviors are normal for your environment and enable it to detect genuine threats more effectively. Implement and test your incident response plan. Make sure your organization has planned exactly how it will respond to security incidents that your SIEM alerts you to.

The Top 10 SIEM Solutions

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Exabeam Fusion SIEM

Exabeam enhances enterprise security with actionable intelligence. Fusion SIEM, a cloud-based solution, automates threat detection and response, minimizing alert fatigue and false positives for SOC teams. It includes pre-packaged reporting to meet PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOX, and GDPR compliance and auditing needs.

Why We Picked Exabeam Fusion SIEM: We are impressed by Fusion SIEM’s machine learning-driven behavior analytics and modular design, offering powerful threat detection and flexible deployment for enterprises.

Exabeam Fusion SIEM Best Features: Key features include machine learning-powered user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) to detect anomalies, with risk scores assigned based on deviations from normal behavior per admin-configured rules. UEBA scoring reduces false positives, enabling severity-based incident triage. The platform is easy to deploy with out-of-the-box configurations and an intuitive UI. Pre-packaged compliance reporting supports PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOX, and GDPR, streamlining audits.

What’s Great:

ML-driven UEBA for detecting anomalous behaviors
Risk scoring to prioritize incidents and reduce false positives
Easy deployment with intuitive UI and out-of-the-box setups
Pre-packaged PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOX, GDPR compliance reporting
Modular design for flexible integration with existing SIEMs

Pricing: Pricing is available upon request via Exabeam’s sales team, based on users and entities monitored, with term-based licensing.

Who it’s for: Exabeam Fusion SIEM is ideal for large enterprises and SOC teams seeking advanced behavior analytics to combat insider threats, as well as organizations needing modular SIEM enhancements or robust compliance reporting.

IBM Security QRadar

IBM Security, a global leader in cybersecurity, delivers advanced solutions across IT infrastructure, analytics, and software development. QRadar SIEM, available on-premises or as a cloud-hosted platform, provides in-depth log, flow, and event analytics, empowering security teams with actionable insights for threat investigation and response.

Why We Picked IBM Security QRadar SIEM: We rate QRadar SIEM highly for its extensive integrations and granular analytics, offering a comprehensive view of the attack surface for efficient threat management.

IBM Security QRadar SIEM Best Features: Key features include out-of-the-box integrations with 450+ third-party technologies, IBM solutions, and open-source threat intelligence feeds, centralizing threat identification. Granular configuration options enable automated event data analysis and alert prioritization. Actionable insights from security event data streamline investigations, reducing mean time to respond. The platform supports both SaaS and on-premises deployments for flexible implementation.

What’s Great:

450+ integrations with third-party and open-source feeds
Granular, automated event analysis and alert prioritization
Actionable insights for faster threat response
Flexible SaaS or on-premises deployment
Centralized interface for holistic attack surface visibility

Pricing: QRadar SIEM starts at $1,270, with costs based on deployment model (SaaS or on-premises), servers, and users/workstations. Use IBM’s website estimator for tailored pricing.

Who it’s for: IBM Security QRadar SIEM is ideal for mid-sized to large organizations seeking a scalable, integrative SIEM solution for comprehensive threat detection and response across complex IT environments.

LogPoint SIEM

LogPoint, a European cybersecurity leader, transforms organizational data into actionable intelligence. LogPoint SIEM, its flagship solution, integrates User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) to detect anomalies, prioritize threats, and automate incident responses, trusted by organizations worldwide.

Why We Picked LogPoint SIEM: We are impressed by LogPoint SIEM’s integrated UEBA and SOAR, delivering intuitive threat detection and automation that reduces alert fatigue, ideal for organizations and MSPs.

LogPoint SIEM Best Features: Key features include event data visualization with MITRE ATT&CK mapping for efficient alert prioritization. Integrated SOAR automates tasks and incident responses using out-of-the-box playbooks and integrations. UEBA identifies malicious activity by analyzing deviations from normal behavior. The platform offers flexible SaaS, cloud, and on-premises deployments, with multi-instance support for MSPs and multi-entity organizations. LogPoint provides robust technical support and customer-driven updates, such as added SOAR capabilities.

What’s Great:

MITRE ATT&CK-mapped visualization for prioritized alerts
Integrated SOAR with automated playbooks
UEBA for anomaly-based threat detection
Flexible multi-tenant and multi-instance deployments
Strong, customer-focused technical support

Pricing: Pricing is available upon request via LogPoint’s website, based on the number of connected devices. Contact LogPoint for tailored quotes or trial details.

Who it’s for: LogPoint SIEM is ideal for organizations of all sizes, especially those with smaller security teams, seeking an easy-to-manage SIEM with robust SOAR and UEBA, as well as MSPs needing multi-tenant support.

LogRhythm NextGen SIEM Platform

LogRhythm, a leading cybersecurity provider, specializes in threat intelligence, security analytics, log management, and network monitoring. Its NextGen SIEM Platform integrates machine learning-based behavior analytics, network detection and response (NDR), and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) to deliver a unified, holistic view of the attack surface, enabling rapid threat detection and remediation.

Why We Picked LogRhythm NextGen SIEM Platform: We are impressed by LogRhythm’s highly customizable platform and robust analytics, offering flexible deployment and comprehensive visibility for tailored threat management.

LogRhythm NextGen SIEM Platform Best Features: Key features include granular customization for log sources, alerts, and reporting templates to ensure accurate event capture, maximum visibility, and compliance. The platform provides real-time event and log analysis, supporting a wide variety of log sources. It integrates ML-based behavior analytics, NDR, and SOAR for enhanced threat detection and automation. Deployment options include on-premises, IaaS, MSP-managed, or the cloud-hosted LogRhythm Cloud for SaaS flexibility.

What’s Great:

Granular customization for logs, alerts, and reporting
Real-time analytics with broad log source compatibility
ML-based analytics, NDR, and SOAR integration
Flexible deployment: on-premises, IaaS, MSP, or cloud
Reduces alert fatigue while ensuring compliance

Pricing: Pricing is available upon request from LogRhythm’s sales team. Contact LogRhythm for tailored quotes or trial details.

Who it’s for: LogRhythm NextGen SIEM Platform is ideal for mid-sized to large organizations seeking a customizable, on-premises, IaaS, or MSP-managed SIEM, as well as those needing a cloud-hosted SaaS solution with advanced analytics and compliance support.

Rapid7 InsightIDR

Rapid7, a cybersecurity leader, enhances security through visibility, analytics, and automation. InsightIDR, its cloud-native SIEM and XDR platform, is delivered via the Rapid7 Insight platform, integrating with Rapid7’s threat intelligence, orchestration, vulnerability management, and managed services. Customers can access all Insight solutions through a unified interface, streamlining security operations.

Why We Picked Rapid7 InsightIDR: We rate InsightIDR highly for its user-friendly interface and robust detection tools, offering small to mid-sized organizations an efficient, cloud-hosted SIEM with optional MDR add-ons.

Rapid7 InsightIDR Best Features: Key features include an intuitive interface for accessing threat intelligence to inform incident response. Built-in detection and response tools streamline workflows for efficient threat remediation. Accessible threat forensics enable rapid response and prevention of repeat incidents. Out-of-the-box configurations simplify deployment, with customizable options to fit specific environments. The platform integrates seamlessly with Rapid7’s broader Insight solutions, supporting orchestration, automation, and managed services.

What’s Great:

User-friendly interface for streamlined threat intelligence access
Built-in detection and response tools for efficient remediation
Accessible forensics to prevent repeat incidents
Easy deployment with customizable configurations
Unified integration with Rapid7 Insight solutions

Pricing: InsightIDR is available via three tiered plans: Essential at $3.82/asset/month, Advanced at $6.36/asset/month, and Ultimate at $8.21/asset/month (based on 250,000 assets), on a termly license. Contact Rapid7 for tailored quotes.

Who it’s for: Rapid7 InsightIDR is ideal for small to mid-sized organizations seeking a cloud-hosted SIEM and XDR solution, especially those with limited security resources benefiting from MDR and orchestration add-ons.

Securonix Unified Defense SIEM

Securonix, a leader in security analytics and operations management, leverages big data to combat cyberthreats. Unified Defense SIEM, its cloud-native solution, empowers security teams with machine learning-based analytics, threat chain analysis, and integrated SOAR for efficient threat detection and automated response.

Why We Picked Securonix Unified Defense SIEM: We are impressed by Securonix’s advanced behavioral analytics and integrated SOAR, delivering actionable intelligence and streamlined threat response for robust security operations.

Securonix Unified Defense SIEM Best Features: Key features include out-of-the-box integrations with third-party and Securonix’s native threat intelligence platforms, transforming event data into actionable insights. Machine learning-driven behavioral analytics and user risk scoring prioritize incident response. Threat models align with MITRE ATT&CK and US-CERT frameworks to reduce alert volume. Integrated SOAR with automated playbooks enhances response efficiency. The modular architecture supports flexible on-premises or as-a-Service deployments.

What’s Great:

ML-based behavioral analytics and user risk scoring
MITRE ATT&CK and US-CERT-aligned threat models
Integrated SOAR with automated response playbooks
Out-of-the-box threat intelligence integrations
Flexible modular deployment options

Pricing: Pricing is available upon request via Securonix’s sales team, with perpetual or term licenses for on-premises or as-a-Service deployments. Contact Securonix for tailored quotes or trial details.

Who it’s for: Securonix Unified Defense SIEM is ideal for mid-sized to large organizations with dedicated security resources. Smaller customers can also leverage Securonix’s SIEM if they opt to buy via an MSP that will help them manage it.

Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM

Sumo Logic is a data analytics company that focuses on collecting and analyzing machine data for security, operations, and business intelligence use cases. They offer event and log management and analytics solutions that help organizations make data-driven decisions. Cloud SIEM is Sumo Logic’s cloud-native SIEM solution designed to identify threats across on-premises, cloud, multi-cloud, and hybrid cloud sources.

Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Features:

Integrates via API with multiple sources, including security tools such as VMWare Carbon Black, OKTA, AWS GuardDuty, and Microsoft 365, making it easier for security teams to gain a holistic view of their attack surface
Out-of-the-box rules relate events to the MITRE ATT&CK framework to help security teams triage and prioritize threats
Free training and certification included, with helpful product documentation
User-friendly, easy-to-navigate interface makes it easy to identify threats and vulnerabilities

Pricing And Plans: Licensing for Sumo Logic’s Cloud SIEM is tiered and either subscription-based, with pricing based on data ingestion volume, or credit-based. The SIEM is available via the Enterprise Security and Enterprise Suite versions of SumoLogic’s wider platform.

Expert Insights’ Comments: Because of its flexible packing and pricing options, we recommend Sumo Logic as a strong cloud-based SIEM for organizations of all sizes looking to improve their threat detection and streamline their incident response processes.

10.

Splunk Enterprise Security

Sumo Logic, a leading data analytics provider, specializes in machine data collection and analysis for security, operations, and business intelligence. Its Cloud SIEM, a cloud-native solution, enables organizations to detect and prioritize threats across on-premises, cloud, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments with a user-friendly interface and robust integrations.

Why We Picked Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM: We rate Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM highly for its flexible pricing and seamless integrations, offering organizations of all sizes efficient threat detection and streamlined incident response.

Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Best Features: Key features include API integrations with security tools like VMware Carbon Black, Okta, AWS GuardDuty, and Microsoft 365, providing a holistic view of the attack surface. Out-of-the-box rules map events to the MITRE ATT&CK framework for effective threat triage and prioritization. The platform offers a user-friendly, easy-to-navigate interface, free training, certification, and comprehensive documentation to support security teams.

What’s Great:

API integrations with VMware Carbon Black, Okta, and more
MITRE ATT&CK-mapped rules for threat prioritization
User-friendly interface for easy threat identification
Free training and certification included
Flexible deployment across cloud and hybrid environments

Pricing: Pricing is available via Sumo Logic’s sales team, with tiered subscription or credit-based licensing based on data ingestion volume, offered through Enterprise Security or Enterprise Suite plans.

Who it’s for: Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM is ideal for organizations of all sizes seeking a cloud-native SIEM with flexible pricing, robust integrations, and user-friendly threat detection for on-premises, cloud, or hybrid environments.

Other Security Operations Services

SentinelOne Singularity XDR

AI-powered SIEM offering autonomous threat detection, investigation, and response.

Graylog

Open-source SIEM solution providing centralized log management, real-time search, and analytics.

LogicMonitor

Unified monitoring platform offering infrastructure and security insights including log analysis.

Elastic Security

AI-driven SIEM capabilities with advanced threat detection and response

How to Choose the Right SIEM Solution?

Selecting the right Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution involves aligning the platform with your organization’s security operations, infrastructure, and compliance needs. Consider these key steps to make an informed choice:

Assess Your Environment: Evaluate your IT landscape (e.g., on-premises, cloud, hybrid), log sources (e.g., servers, firewalls, endpoints), and threat priorities (e.g., malware, insider threats) to ensure comprehensive coverage.
Define Security and Compliance Goals: Identify critical use cases like threat detection, incident response, or compliance with standards (e.g., PCI DSS, GDPR) to guide feature requirements and reporting needs.
Prioritize Scalability and Performance: Choose a solution that handles your current log volume and can scale to support growing data, multi-cloud environments, or distributed networks without latency.

Focus on critical features to ensure effective threat detection and management:

Real-Time Log Collection and Analysis: Look for platforms that aggregate and normalize logs from diverse sources (e.g., network devices, applications) with real-time correlation to detect threats like ransomware or unauthorized access.
Advanced Threat Detection: Prioritize solutions with AI-driven analytics, User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA), and threat intelligence integration (e.g., via feeds like FortiGuard) to identify anomalies and zero-day threats.
Incident Response Automation: Ensure features like automated alerts, playbooks, and SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) capabilities to streamline investigation and remediation.
Compliance Reporting: Verify pre-built templates and audit-ready reports for standards like HIPAA, SOC 2, or ISO 27001 to simplify regulatory adherence and audits.

Balance functionality with usability to maximize adoption and efficiency:

User-Friendly Interface: Avoid complex platforms that overwhelm analysts, opting for intuitive dashboards, customizable views, and clear visualizations to enhance SOC productivity.
Vendor Support Quality: Select providers with responsive support, detailed documentation, and resources like training or community forums to assist with deployment and optimization.
Testing and Trials: Use demos, free trials (e.g., offered by Splunk or ManageEngine), or independent user reviews to validate performance, ease of use, and fit before committing.

Summary and Key Takeaways

Our guide to the leading Security Information and Event Management solutions provides a comprehensive overview of platforms designed to centralize security monitoring, detect threats, and ensure compliance. The article evaluates tools based on features like real-time log analysis, AI-driven threat detection, automated incident response, and compliance reporting, catering to organizations of all sizes. It emphasizes balancing advanced security capabilities, scalability, and usability to enhance visibility, accelerate response times, and protect against evolving cyber threats in on-premises, cloud, or hybrid environments.

Key Takeaways:

Centralized Threat Visibility: Top SIEM solutions aggregate and analyze logs from diverse sources to provide a unified view of security events, enabling rapid threat detection.
Automated Response: Choose platforms with AI, UEBA, and SOAR features to reduce manual effort and improve incident response efficiency.
Compliance and Scalability: Prioritize tools with scalable architectures and compliance tools to meet regulatory requirements and support growing IT environments.

What Do You Think?

We’ve explored the leading SIEM solutions, highlighting how these tools empower organizations to monitor, detect, and respond to cyber threats with real-time analytics and automation. Now, we’d love to hear your perspective—what’s your experience with SIEM platforms? Are features like AI-driven detection, automated response, or compliance reporting critical for your organization’s security strategy?

Selecting the right SIEM solution can transform how you manage your security operations, but challenges like log volume, integration complexity, or analyst training can arise. Have you found a standout platform that’s enhanced your SOC capabilities, or encountered hurdles with scalability or usability? Share your insights to help other organizations navigate the SIEM landscape and choose the best tool for their needs.

Let us know which solution you recommend to help us improve our list!

FAQs

Everything You Need To Know About SIEM Solutions (FAQs)

There are three main benefits to using SIEM systems: first, they enable you to proactively detect threats to your environment; second, they help make your incident response processes more efficient; and third, and make it easier to keep on top of compliance requirements. Here’s how:

Proactive Threat Detection

SIEM tools proactively collect data from across your organization’s entire infrastructure and centralize it, giving your security team a central, holistic view of all security events across your IT environment. This means that they’re much more likely to pick up on security incidents that may otherwise get lost in a sea of noise.

As well as collecting and logging event data, modern SIEM solutions use machine learning-based analytics to analyze that data for anomalous and potentially malicious activity. This helps SOC teams identify and respond to threats before they can cause damage, rather than becoming aware of them much later in the attack timeline, and only because of the disruption caused.

Finally, SIEM solutions also help organizations to prevent future threats. By combining log and event data with contextual threat intelligence, they’re able to provide a timeline of each attack, helping your security team to determine how the initial breach occurred and how the attack spread. This enables them to make informed decisions on how to improve your organization’s security infrastructure to prevent repeat incidents in the future.

Efficient Incident Response

Security incident response is one of the most commonly-cited areas of skill shortage in the cybersecurity industry—and the lack of knowledge in this space means that it often takes organizations longer that it should to identify and respond to threats, simply because they don’t have the right resource available. In fact, it takes an average of 287 days to identify and contain a data breach—that means, if your systems were breached in January, the average organization wouldn’t be able to contain that breach until October, giving the attacker a lot of time to damage and steal data.

By detecting and analyzing threats automatically, a SIEM solution can help to greatly reduce the time it takes your security team to detect and respond to an incident. The team is told what the incident is and how severe a security risk it poses, enabling them to focus their efforts on the remediation process, rather than getting bogged down sifting through data stores, searching for anomalies. Some SIEM tools also allow admins to configure the automatic remediation of certain threat types.

But that isn’t the only way that SIEM solutions help make your organization’s incident response processes more efficient; they can also reduce the amount of time your SOC team spends barking up the wrong tree. False positives account for 45% of all security alerts, and take just as long to investigate as actual attacks. By analyzing each anomaly and assigning it a risk score, SIEM tools help security teams work out which alerts are genuine threats that need to be investigated, and which are false alarms.

Compliance

In recent years, many organizations have been put under pressure by industry and regulatory bodies to meet—and prove that they are meeting—certain standards designed to ensure the protection of their data, their employees’ data and their customers’ data.

A SIEM solution can also help your organization to prove that it’s meeting industry and regulatory compliance requirements by generating reports—both scheduled and in real-time—of data logs and security events. Instead of having to collect and normalize that data manually for an audit, your security team can simply log into their SIEM tool’s central dashboard and generate the necessary reports in a matter of minutes.

Many SIEM providers offer both on-premises and cloud deployment options, and it can be difficult to know which one to go with. There are a few areas to consider when making this decision:

Deployment: It can be more difficult to deploy an on-premises solution, as it’s likely to take more time to integrate with your existing architecture. A cloud SIEM solution is quicker and easier to deploy, and the provider will often help you manage the deployment and ongoing maintenance of the platform.
Control: On-premises SIEM solutions enable organizations to have full control over their own data. Cloud SIEM solutions, however, involve your company’s data being stored on the provider’s servers; this may be in their own cloud or in a public cloud. Some organizations are required by compliance regulations to keep a record of any data they store in the cloud, which can be time-consuming and may mean that an on-prem deployment is the better option.
Scalability: On-premises solutions are often cheaper to deploy initially, but it can be difficult to upgrade them if your business grows or starts processing more data than you originally budgeted for. Cloud solutions are much easier to scale because they’re usually delivered on a subscription-based license and enable you to add or remove features as needed, with immediate effect.
Accessibility: Cloud SIEM solutions are much easier for remote and hybrid teams to access than on-premises ones, as security teams can sign in to and manage the SIEM securely from anywhere, at any time.
Updates: Organizations that invest in an on-premises SIEM solution are responsible for updating that solution themselves. Administering these updates can often be time-consuming and require you to pause log collection, resulting in down-time. Those that invest in cloud SIEM solutions needn’t worry about this, as updates are usually managed by the provider.

Generally, if your business isn’t restricted by compliance and privacy requirements that require you to have certain controls over your data, we recommend that you invest in a cloud SIEM solution. But ultimately, you need to evaluate which of the above points are most important to your organization, and make your decision based on those factors.

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Security Information and Events Management (SIEM) Buyers’ Guide

How to choose the right SIEM software.

Alex Zawalnyski, Tom King Last updated on Aug 30, 2024

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Written By

Caitlin Harris

Caitlin Harris is the Deputy Head of Content at Expert Insights. As an experienced content writer and editor, Caitlin helps cybersecurity leaders to cut through the noise in the cybersecurity space with expert analysis and insightful recommendations. Prior to Expert Insights, Caitlin worked at QA Ltd, where she produced award-winning technical training materials, and she has also produced journalistic content over the course of her career. Caitlin has 8 years of experience in the cybersecurity and technology space, helping technical teams, CISOs, and security professionals find clarity on complex, mission critical topics like security awareness training, backup and recovery, and endpoint protection. Caitlin also hosts the Expert Insights Podcast and co-writes the weekly newsletter, Decrypted.

Technical Review

Laura Iannini Cybersecurity Analyst

Laura Iannini is a Cybersecurity Analyst at Expert Insights. With deep cybersecurity knowledge and strong research skills, she leads Expert Insights’ product testing team, conducting thorough tests of product features and in-depth industry analysis to ensure that Expert Insights’ product reviews are definitive and insightful. Laura also carries out wider analysis of vendor landscapes and industry trends to inform Expert Insights’ enterprise cybersecurity buyers’ guides, covering topics such as security awareness training, cloud backup and recovery, email security, and network monitoring. Prior to working at Expert Insights, Laura worked as a Senior Information Security Engineer at Constant Edge, where she tested cybersecurity solutions, carried out product demos, and provided high-quality ongoing technical support. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cybersecurity from the University of West Florida.

The Top 10 SIEM Solutions

Discover the top best SIEM solutions. Explore features such as data collection and analysis, threat detection, incident investigation, alerting, and centralized management.