What Is Log Management and Why you Need it

It is arguable that log management forms the basis of modern cybersecurity. Without the detailed access logs provided by internal security tools and systems, organizations would lack the data they needed to make crucial cybersecurity decisions.

This blog will review what log management is, the basics of the log management process, and why an enterprise-level log management solution is now par for the course when it comes to modern cybersecurity.

What Is Log Management?

Log management is the process of collecting, storing, analyzing, and utilizing the data produced by various systems and applications within an organization's IT infrastructure.

Logs provide valuable insights into performance and user behavior, telling security analysts key pieces of data on websites, servers, databases, endpoints, and network devices. These include: file transfers, access requests, file requests, error reports, IP address, and more.

The point of centralized log management solutions is to give practitioners a clear view of what happened on the network, when, and with whom. As all logs are timestamped, they can provide necessary information into key internal actions that could denote in-progress cyberattacks.

If organizations fail to collect, store, and analyze those records, they could open themselves to digital attacks.

Poor Log Management: What’s at Stake

Logs are crucial to security visibility. Governing bodies agree, as security practitioners are held hostage to the quality of their logs.

Log Management: Compliance

The Center for Internet Security (CIS) included log management in its Critical Security Controls. CIS Implementation Group (IG1) (the top priority when implementing the CIS controls) includes three of the 12 Safeguards associated with CIS Control 8: Audit Log Management.

Additionally, log management is mandated by HIPAA, SOX, GDPR, and PCI DSS.

Attackers Hide in Unchecked Logs

Log collection and analysis is critical for an enterprise’s ability to detect malicious activity quickly.

Sometimes, audit records are the only evidence of a successful attack. Attackers know that many enterprises keep audit logs for compliance purposes but rarely analyze them. Attackers use this knowledge to hide their location, malicious software, and activities in victim machines. Due to poor or nonexistent log analysis processes, attackers sometimes control victim machines for months or years without anyone in the target enterprise knowing.

No Log Management Solution: Slow Incident Response

Log management systems are also critical to incident response. Nowadays, digital attackers can use the complexity of organizations’ network environments to move laterally to different assets so that they can exfiltrate sensitive information.

Such activity makes it difficult for security teams to figure out exactly what happened in a security incident and determine its full scope without the ability to analyze complete log records.

How Does Log Management Work?

There are five elements of a complete log management process. They are as follows:

1. Collection

Organizations need to collect logs over encrypted channels. Good log management solutions should come equipped with multiple means to collect logs, but they should recommend the most reliable means of doing so. In general, organizations should use agent-based collection whenever possible, as this method is generally more secure and reliable than its agentless counterpart.

2. Storage

Once they have collected them, organizations need to preserve, compress, encrypt, store, and archive their logs. Companies can look for additional functionality in their log management software, such as the ability to specify where they can store their logs geographically. This type of feature can help meet their compliance requirements and ensure scalability.

3. Search

Organizations need to confirm that they can find their logs once they’ve stored them, so they should index their records in a way where they are discoverable via plaintext, REGEX, and API queries. A comprehensive log management solution should enable companies to optimize each log search with filters and classification tags. It should also allow them to view raw logs, conduct broad and detailed queries, and compare multiple queries at once.

4. Correlation

Organizations need to create rules that they can use to detect interesting events and perform automated actions. Of course, most events don’t occur on a single host in a single log. For that reason, companies should look for a log management solution that lets them create correlation rules according to the unique threats and requirements their environments face. They should also seek out a tool that allows them to import other data sources, such as vulnerability scans and asset inventories.

5. Output

Finally, companies need to be able to distribute log information to different users and groups using dashboards, reports, and email. Enterprise-ready log management solutions should facilitate the exchange of data with other systems and the security team.

Fortra’s Log Management Solution

Fortra Integrity & Compliance Monitoring is designed with these five elements at its core. Among other things, it enables companies to create customized log rules, collect and store all data, customize dashboards according to noteworthy events on the network, and reduce noise by filtering out data.

Log management is just one of five foundational controls with which organizations should concern themselves when purchasing a new security solution. And yet it is a control that must be right. As the saying goes, “put good in, get good out.”

An organization’s entire cybersecurity structure is powered by the accuracy, efficacy, and accessibility of its logs. Investing in an enterprise-level log management solution is essential to getting it right.

Learn the essential questions to ask when selecting the right log management solution in Fortra’s Foundational Controls Buyer’s Guide.