Security Information & Event Management (Centralized Evidence, Faster Detection)
Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) is your central nervous system for security logs and analytics. It collects, normalizes, and correlates events from endpoints, networks, identities, cloud, and apps—so you detect threats faster, prove controls, and ship audit-ready evidence. SolveForce designs SIEM with clear schemas, low ingestion lag, and SLO-backed dashboards, tightly integrated with detection and response.
Where SIEM fits in our model:
🔒 Security (Semantics) → Cybersecurity • 🧠 Decision & automation → SIEM / SOAR
🛡️ Endpoints → EDR • MDR • 🖧 East–West → NDR
🔑 Identity → IAM / SSO / MFA • 🔐 Access → ZTNA / SASE
☁️ Cloud → Cloud • 🖥️ Ops → Patch Management • NOC Services
🎯 Outcomes (What a good SIEM program delivers)
- Rapid, reliable detection — correlated alerts from multiple domains (endpoint, network, identity, cloud).
- Complete evidence — immutable timelines, artifacts, approvals; audit packs in minutes, not days.
- Lower MTTR — clean handoff to response playbooks (SOAR) and ticketing for accountability.
- Operational clarity — SLO dashboards for ingestion lag, alert fidelity, coverage, and cost.
- Compliance at speed — PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001, NIST, CMMC mapped to data and controls.
🧭 What SIEM Ingests (Telemetry Scope)
- Endpoints/Servers: EDR events, process/script telemetry, AV, FIM (File Integrity Monitoring). → EDR
- Network: flow (NetFlow/IPFIX), PCAP metadata, DNS, DHCP, TLS SNI/JA3, firewall/IPS/WAF. → NDR • WAF / Bot Management
- Identity & Access: IdP logs (SAML/OIDC), MFA outcomes, privilege changes, LDAP/Kerberos, PAM events. → IAM / SSO / MFA • PAM
- Cloud: AWS CloudTrail/GuardDuty, Azure Activity/Defender, GCP Audit/IDS, Kubernetes audit/cni. → Cloud
- Email & Web: secure email gateway, phishing/BEC, URL sandbox verdicts, SWG/CASB logs. → SASE
- Apps & Databases: API gateways, auth failures, admin actions, DLP hits. → DLP
Goal: ≥95% of prescribed data sources connected with schema-normalized fields (host, user, src/dst, action, object, result, severity, labels).
🧱 Architecture (Clean Pipes, Low Lag)
Collectors/Forwarders → Message Bus → Parsers/Normalizers → SIEM Data Lake/Index → Rules/Analytics → Cases → SOAR → ITSM
- Collectors: syslog/agents/HTTP collectors; Windows Event Forwarding (WEF) for domain fleets.
- Normalization: map to a consistent schema (e.g., ECS-like); avoid per-source snowflakes.
- Enrichment: asset/user inventory, geo/ASN, threat intel, CMDB, tags (business unit, sensitivity).
- Storage tiers: hot (7–30d) for search & rules; warm/cold (90–365d+) for compliance.
- Multi-region (optional): region-local ingest with centralized query/aggregation.
🔍 Detections & Analytics (ATT&CK-aligned)
- Rule types: threshold, sequence, outlier, ML-assisted behavior models, risk scoring.
- Use cases (high yield):
- C2 Beaconing (periodicity/JA3 anomalies) ← NDR + DNS
- Lateral Movement (RDP/SMB/WMI patterns) ← EDR + NDR
- Credential Theft (Kerberoasting, token anomalies) ← Identity + EDR
- Exfiltration (egress to new ASNs/cloud storage spikes) ← NDR + DLP
- Ransomware (encryption behavior, shadow-copy tamper) ← EDR + File events
- Account Takeover/BEC (impossible travel, MFA bypass attempts) ← IdP/Email
Alert quality bar: Precision ≥ 92–95%, recall ≥ 80–90% for priority use cases after tuning.
🧠 UEBA (User & Entity Behavior Analytics)
- Baseline per user/host/service; score anomalies (time, location, device, access patterns).
- Merge with role/risk (e.g., finance admin > contractor) to prioritize triage.
- Use explanations (why scored) to prevent black-box fatigue.
🔗 Response Interlock (SIEM ↔ SOAR, NOC, IR)
- SOAR runs approved playbooks: isolate endpoint, block IP/domain, revoke session, step-up MFA, NAC quarantine, SD-WAN path pin. → SIEM / SOAR • NOC Services
- Case mgmt: cases include timeline, artifacts (PCAP/hash/log), owner, SLA, RCA.
- IR Handover: Sev-1/2 incidents push to Incident Response with executive comms. → Incident Response
🔒 Data Governance, Privacy & Evidence
- Immutability: write-once buckets or WORM-retention where mandated.
- PII minimization: mask where possible; decrypt only with scope/approval.
- Chain-of-custody: artifact hashing, access logs, evidence labels (Sev/Case/Owner).
- Retention: hot 30–90d (search/rules), warm/cold 180–365d+ (compliance), with legal hold support.
- Access control: RBAC per team; admin actions logged with step-up MFA. → PAM
📐 SLO Guardrails (Experience & Fidelity You Can Prove)
| SLO | Target (Recommended) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Ingestion lag (90p) | ≤ 60–120 s from source to index | Per source; burst handling |
| Alerting latency (Sev-1) | ≤ 60 s post-event | For priority rules |
| Search latency (95p, 24h window) | ≤ 3–5 s | Normalized fields, hot tier |
| Coverage (required sources onboarded) | ≥ 95% | Measured monthly |
| False Positive Rate | ≤ 5–8% | Weekly rule tuning |
| Availability (platform) | ≥ 99.9–99.99% | Multi-AZ/region optional |
Dashboards surface SLOs + cost (GB/day, hot %), so leaders can see value and spend.
🧩 Cost Drivers (No Surprises)
- Ingest volume (GB/day) & retention (days) per data class.
- Hot vs. warm/cold storage ratios; indexing strategy.
- Transforms (parsing/ML) and egress for cross-region queries.
- License model (events/second, data/GB, feature tiers).
- SOAR actions volume (if bundled) and case retention.
We right-size by: source scoping, field drop/mask plans, tiering, and sampling (only where safe).
🛠️ Implementation Blueprint
- Log inventory & policy — list sources, map to controls and compliance (PCI/HIPAA/ISO/NIST).
- Schemas & parsers — adopt unified schema; build parsers for outliers; test with golden samples.
- Pipelines — collectors, buffers, transforms; set lag SLO alarms.
- Correlation library — ATT&CK-aligned rules + UEBA baselines; set precision/recall targets.
- Playbooks & cases — define Sev classes, ownership, SOAR actions, and approvals.
- Dashboards — SLOs (lag, latency, coverage), threat KPIs (MTTD/MTTC), cost (GB/day).
- Drills — table-tops (ransomware/ATO/exfil), blackhole/quarantine tests; document RCAs. → Tabletop Exercises
- Handover — NOC+SecOps runbooks, escalation trees; weekly tuning loop.
🧪 Tuning Loop (Weekly Cadence)
- Review false positives/negatives; adjust thresholds, sequences, intel lists.
- Retire rules that never fire; promote hunts to rules if high yield.
- Validate ingestion health; fix parsers causing field drift.
- Publish wins: MTTD/MTTC improvements, case studies, and risk reduction notes.
📜 Compliance Mapping (Examples)
- PCI DSS 10 — log management, time sync, integrity, and review.
- HIPAA 164.312(b) — audit controls; 164.308(a)(1) risk mgmt evidence.
- ISO 27001 — A.12 (ops security), A.16 (incident mgmt), A.5 (policies).
- NIST 800-53/171 — AU (audit), IR (incident response), SI (monitoring).
- CMMC — AU/IR maturity; evidence exports from SIEM.
All mapped controls link to data sources and cases for proof-on-demand.
✅ Pre-Engagement Checklist
- 📄 Source list (EDR, NDR, IdP, Cloud, FW/WAF, Email, Apps/DB).
- 🧭 Schemas (ECS-like) and parser readiness; golden samples available.
- ⏱️ SLOs for lag/search/alerting; Sev definitions; ownership matrix.
- 🔐 Privacy stance (PII masking, decryption scope/approvals); retention days per class.
- 🔗 Integrations: SOAR, NOC, ticketing, IR comms; NAC/SD-WAN/ZTNA hooks.
- 💵 Budgets: GB/day, hot %, retention, egress, licenses; cost dashboards.
- 🧪 Drills schedule and RCA format.
🔄 Where SIEM Fits (Recursive View)
1) Grammar — signals ride Connectivity & the Networks & Data Centers fabric.
2) Syntax — delivery patterns in Cloud inform sensor placement and parsing.
3) Semantics — Cybersecurity preserves truth; SIEM correlates and proves.
4) Pragmatics — SolveForce AI enriches, deduplicates, predicts, and triggers safe automation.
5) Foundation — consistent terms enforced by Primacy of Language.
6) Map — indexed in the SolveForce Codex & Knowledge Hub.
📞 Launch SIEM that Detects Fast & Proves Controls
Related pages:
SIEM / SOAR • Cybersecurity • EDR • MDR • NDR • IAM / SSO / MFA • ZTNA • SASE • Patch Management • Incident Response • NOC Services • Knowledge Hub