8 Common User and Entity Behavior Analytics Use Cases
01.08.2022
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The world's course towards digitization increases the need for organizations to protect their sensitive data and information more than ever before.
According to IDC, in 2025, global investment in the digital transformation of businesses is expected to exceed $2.8 trillion. When you use a significant part of the organization's budget for digitalization, you have to protect this investment.
Of course, it's not just organizations that appreciate the value of digital data and information. Cyber attackers are taking the tools they use to a more advanced level every day to take this data and information under their control. For this reason, organizations need modern cyber security solutions for detecting threats.
In this article, we will talk about User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA), one of these modern security solutions, and common User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) security use cases.
UEBA is the advanced and inclusive version of user behavior analytics (UBA) technology, which is used to analyze user behavior, created considering the security threats that user-like entities may pose. UEBA tools regularly monitor the behavior of users and entities that have access to sensitive data and information and create a regular behavior pattern. It detects abnormal behavior that goes outside of this standard behavior path and reports it to IT personnel.
Since long-term behavior patterns of users are as unique to individuals as fingerprints, it is very difficult for attackers to imitate them exactly. For this reason, UEBA makes very accurate predictions and naturally keeps the risk of false positives very low. Thus, it catches potential threats before they are detected by threat intelligence.
With UEBA, you can strengthen your security posture in many ways, while reducing the workload on your employees and saving a lot of resources. Here are some common UEBA use cases:
Standard users follow a standard behavior path in the routine of business life, as long as their roles or responsibilities do not change. UEBA draws up a sketch of this standard course of behavior. IT classifies the behaviors that are not matching with this standard and determines users' risk scores accordingly.
When a user account falls into the hands of cyber attackers, it begins to behave far from normal. The user account suddenly starts downloading data tens of times its average, goes beyond the actions required by its role, and starts accessing data that it does not normally access. This is detected as suspicious by UEBA and immediately reported to the IT teams.
Unlike UBA tools, UEBA tools also monitor the movements of cyber entities, such as routers or servers that can act like users. When cyber attackers take operational control of these entities, they gain access privileges to sensitive data.
Since these entities do not have a specific human owner, manual detection of anomalous behavior is much more difficult than detecting users. UEBA monitors the movements of these entities by creating standards, just like a user, and notifies the authorities in the security unit when it detects suspicious behavior.
Internal threats are often much more difficult to detect than external cyberattacks. Since users carry out operations with the access privileges they have, it does not leave a trace as much as an outside intervention.
Behavioral analysis against insider attacks is a very powerful method, whether it is done intentionally by a current or former employee, or by a compromised account. When UEBA tools are used, identifying the identity and role of an employee deviating from the standard course of conduct is not as challenging as it normally is.
Actions that are not a direct potential threat, but that could result in data breaches or company losses, can be just as damaging in the long run as an inside threat. When you can monitor the standard behaviors of your users in real time, you can instantly realize how ordinary actions on a standard day threaten the security structure of the organization and take the right precautions.
One of the classic operations cyber-attackers do after taking control of a privileged user is creating high-privileged accounts to make tracking harder. In such a situation, it is difficult to standardize the behavior of newly opened accounts.
However, when you can detect the anomaly in the account that is creating the new users, there is no need to even monitor the movements of these accounts. UEBA tools detect users who create an unexpected number of accounts with unusual privileges. This way, you catch the threat at its source.
The devices and assets of the organization's C-level members are often where the most critical information for the company is stored. If cyber attackers gain access there, the company will be hit in its most sensitive area.
UEBA solutions continuously monitor access to these sensitive assets. If it detects data access in an abnormal format or frequency, it immediately notifies the IT team.
Regular monitoring of user activity radically speeds up the investigation process of a data breach. When you follow the actions of the account that committed the data breach, you can reach the source of the breach. This will not only strengthen your hand in legal processes but also allow you to transfer the workforce and time you would lose with a manual investigation to other channels.
Deciding which data the user in which role has access to is an issue that needs to be decided with precision. This authorization can be restricted when it is seen that a user is able to log in to an area that is not suitable for their role while tracking the movements of users. Or users whose privileges do not change even though their role has changed can be detected.
Cyber attacks on compromised user accounts are often disastrous simply because those accounts' access privileges are wider than they should be. Automated tracking of user movements enables the IT team to perfect role and authorization matching.
UEBA solutions are very effective tools for detecting cyber-attacks that affect user and entity behavior. However, they need to be used together with other security solutions for a holistic and advanced incident response strategy.
Logsign's next-gen SIEM technology enables your IT team to collect and store an infinite amount of data, analyze and identify risks, and respond to threats instantly. It allows you to achieve the best degree of protection thanks to its integration with leading UEBA tools. Combining UEBA and SIEM enables security teams to work confidently and productively while protecting their cyber structure and significantly reduces long-term expenses.
If you want to discover how Logsign SIEM carries your security posture to the top level, you can review the SIEM use cases.
