When you’re running any kind of business or enterprise, it’s essential that you have a way to keep track of the events that occur on your digital devices. Each year, more and more ways to hack and disrupt your information emerge.
Keeping track of your activity is the only way to safeguard yourself and protect your business information. There are several ways to track activity, but one of the best is called event log management.
We’re going to look at cybersecurity today, exploring how event log management software can benefit your business. Hopefully, some of the information below will inspire you to start investing in your network security.
Let’s get started.
How Does Event Log Management Work?
Essentially, every time your computer completes a function, there’s a trace that gets left behind. In many cases, the footprint of every activity on your network comes packed with a little bit of information about what occurred and what the outcome was.
The idea is to have a way to collect those footprints and manage that information in a digestible way to human beings. We say “digestible to human beings” because every device produces a myriad of information every day.
Scale that volume of information up to all of the devices on your network, and you have a mountain of information to peer through. It would take you a year to dissect all the information that builds up over a single day on a business network.
So, event log management software collects that information and manages it in a way that’s accessible. It gives you the ability to locate specific activity on specific devices, isolate potential issues, and conceptualize solutions without sifting through data.
Data Organization
One of the ways in which this software benefits network security is the fact that it splits information into categories. Most of the activity on a network falls into one of a few sections.
There are system events that tend to involve someone working with the hard drive of a computer and dealing with information that exists in the memory of the device itself. Application events are those that occur in the context of a particular program or application on the computer.
Finally, security events occur in a more nuanced manner. Security events might happen in the application of your security software, but they could also occur in applications or on the network. These are the most important events in event log management, and they also happen to be the most difficult to find.
They’re spread out, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t be as evident when you’re perusing the activity on your network. Some of the following benefits are ways that those security issues get found.
Anomaly Detection
Anomaly detection is essential in noticing security issues. In a sea of computer data, there are a lot of trends and habits that devices have. That said, there’s so much information on the network, with a lot of that information being produced for the first time each day.
In other words, people in your business organization will do new things and explore new ways to use their devices each day. If you had a security shutdown each time somebody worked with a new function on their computer, your business would be in gridlock all of the time.
So, event log software has to find a way to identify issues without jumping ship every day. The algorithm used to detect anomalies can look at the patterns of information on a network and locate changes that suggest a threat.
Data threats tend to act upon essential elements of a network, and those are ones that produce a lot of data every day. The more fundamental something is, the more likely it is that your event log management software has a good read on how things should go.
When something starts to change that pattern, you’ll be alerted, and the software will find the reason for the change.
Centralization Benefits
Another essential function for these types of software is that they have to bring all of your information together in a way that makes it easy to process. All of the devices that are integral to your network have to be included. Otherwise, security threats could go through unnoticed.
At the very least, security threats that enter your network won’t get traced back to the source if you’re not able to monitor each device in the network.
Having everything in one place is also beneficial because it prevents you from using multiple platforms or pieces of software to manage different devices. In the case of a real security threat, the last thing you want to do is juggle information from different platforms.
Metrics and Improved Functionality
While most of the emphasis is put on security, there’s also the added benefit of improved data on the majority of your network. You can see how your devices are working, how fast they’re working, what might be taking up undue storage, and more.
You’ll get a look at some information that could help you streamline your network and allow your staff to work a lot more efficiently. We seldom take a bird’s eye view of our network, and doing so allows us to see all of the kinks in our chain that might be holding us back.
You can take a look at these best practices to see how to improve security and your functionality. There’s always more you can do to strengthen your defense against hackers. With so much at stake, it’s important to find ways to create a digital stronghold for yourself.
Want to Learn More?
Event log management is something that requires a little bit of time and effort to understand. There’s a lot to learn, but it’s all worth the investment. We’re here to help.
Explore our site for more insight into digital security, event log management software, and much more.
