Security log management is the process of collecting, storing, and correlating the network data that details all activity in your systems and networks. Every action in an organization’s network generates event data, including records produced by operating systems, applications, devices, and users. The Center for Internet Security (CIS) identifies log management as a basic control for detecting malicious actors and software hiding in networks and on machines.

In our latest post we’re covering a range of the different kinds of problems and threats data analysis can help protect your business from. We’ve brought together some of our favourite experts working in big data, cybersecurity and tech to shed light on some of the practical applications of using data analysis for protecting your operations.

The network security basics for your organization should include some type of data breach detection tools. Data breaches are on the rise in recent years, including stealing personal information about employees and customers. From credit card numbers to social security numbers and pay records, hackers have stolen a wide range of data from businesses of all sizes. Any business that does not have data breach detection measures in place is vulnerable.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools focus on insights into IT environments and tracking records of all their operations. These IT environments can be application infrastructures, physical networks, and cloud networks. SIEM initially evolved from the log management discipline, which involved integrating security events with security information to collect, analyze, and report on activities in networks.

The network is foundational to distributed application environments. A distributed application has multiple microservices, each running in a set of pods often located on different nodes. Problem areas in a distributed application can be in network layer connectivity (think network flow logs), or application resources unavailability (think metrics), or component unavailability (think tracing).