File Integrity Monitoring and SIEM
03.02.2020
Read
Today’s cybersecurity threats such as Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are more dangerous than ever. Even the traditional security systems such as antivirus programs are unable to prevent them due to their sophistication and uncontrollable frequency. In order to prevent the menace of cyber threats and attacks, now companies are looking for multiple layered security to enhance their cybersecurity posture more effectively. This is the reason we use File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) together to safer the world.
In this article, we will detail and FIM, SIEM, and then the benefits of integrating FIM with a SIEM solution.
Sometimes, the legitimate modifications to hardware and software components occur when the security professionals apply patches to them. However, this would not be the case each time if changes are made by their unexpected nature or due to the internal or/and external threats.
The FIM is a security control that monitor and record changes to the system files and other critical applications in order to detect unauthorized modifications or cyberattack. The following files and configuration settings can be monitored by the FIM:
An effective FIM solution can help the organization in protecting their IT infrastructure, reducing noise, and staying compliant with various compliance standards such as HIPAA, NIST, SOX, FISMA, NERC CIP, and PCI DSS, as well as best practice frameworks such as the CIS security benchmarks.
As per the Gartner, SIEM is a security technology utilized for security incident response and threat detection via a real-time acquisition and historical analysis of security events from a wide spectrum of contextual data sources.
In simple words, the SIEM enables security professionals to find, monitor, record, and analyze security events or incidents within a real-time environment and store their relevant data at a central place. In addition, with a SIEM tool, you can interpret logs, handle security alerts, perform data aggregation, use dashboards, utilize threat intelligence feeds, and conduct computer forensics.
Integrating the FIM with SIEM tool offers a lot of benefits to organizations in terms of enhancing cybersecurity posture. Below are some most common advantages in this regard:
Since cybersecurity threats are fast and sophisticated, you cannot rely merely on traditional security tools such as antivirus programs or firewalls. Instead, multiple layered security solutions are required to deal with this situation. To this end, companies use FIM and SIEM together to enhance their cybersecurity posture.
