A fundamental aspect of today’s digital world is the need to keep us informed of what is happening in our companies. Both in our assets and applications and web pages. The best way to achieve it is through Security Information Systems and Event Management (SIEM). A SIEM tool is an instrument that generates centralized reports; automatic incident response, information for compliance reports, etc.
These systems collect security log events within a company and store the data. This allows for analysis and reports on the security events of the company. Now, there are many SIEM tools in the market. Today we will talk about two, comparing their capabilities: AlienVault and Rapid7.
AlienVault
AlienVault is a unified platform designed to provide complete defense against security threats. Offering an updated service, AlienVault focuses especially on Small and Medium Enterprises. This SIEM tool feeds on continuous intelligence protocols; including AlienVault Security Threats Labs and Open Threat Exchange. The latter is the pioneer community of security intelligence; created to provide collaborative defense against digital security threats.
AlienVault differs from other security products in the network by providing:
- Unified and coordinated Security Monitoring.
- Management / Administration of Security Events and Presentation of Friendly Reports.
- Intelligence against Continued Security Threats.
- Fast deployment (Installs in 30 minutes).
- Many security functions in a single console.
The result is a broad and powerful solution that provides a complete view of your digital assets.
Rapid7
Then, we have Rapid7. This tool combines the best of two worlds: SIEM solutions and behavior analysis. This builds a powerful SIEM tool called InsightIDR. It is an instrument that goes beyond traditional security approaches. Not only does it allow companies to expect internal threats; It also covers a broad spectrum of external threats.
With Rapid7, you can access your security data easily. With this information, you can identify unusual activities within the system. This is thanks to the correlation of abnormal events offered by InsightIDR.
In the field of tools, Rapid7 grants:
- Monitoring and anticipation of unauthorized endpoint intrusions.
- Automated and continuous behavior analysis.
- Simple and customizable panels.
- Compliance with standards and regulations.
What defines AlienVault as a SIEM tool?
Something that differentiates AlienVault from other tools is its Threat Analysis and Detection. This instrument is perfect to organizations that base their business on the Cloud. The combination of many essential security capabilities such as asset discovery, vulnerability assessment, intruder detection, behavior monitoring, endpoint detection and response, SIEM event correlation and record management, make it a unified console. This makes it a cost-effective SIEM tool. It identifies, analyzes and responds and efficiently to emerging threats.
AlienVault Labs, its research team, works with Open Threat Exchange. This allows them to investigate the latest global threats and vulnerabilities; which differentiates its threat intelligence updates from other SIEM platforms. This guarantees an optimal security monitoring solution, even without a dedicated security team.
What defines Rapid7 as a SIEM tool?
The main attraction of InsightIDR as a SIEM tool is its ability to ingest log files from any source. We are talking about the event itself, an existing record aggregator or any other data. The delivery of this data is very fast thanks to its incredible search engine. The user- behavior analysis correlates the millions of events that your company generates. Users, assets, files; everything enriches the security data with the user context.
Another main differentiator is its level of regulatory compliance. From PCI DSS to HIPAA, whatever the obligation is, InsightIDR meets the requirements. We talk about the protection of confidential data of customers, main stakeholders, and auditors. Especially those that need the monitoring of all access to network resources systems.
Testimonials of each SIEM tool
AlienVault is a success
It took a while to adjust this SIEM tool as we wanted. It measures a lot of traffic, so we had to have several meetings to clean up for 2 months. We are very happy with what AV shows the security team daily. It is a low maintenance product.
Daniel Jones, Security analyst at AmeriBen – June 18, 2019
Comprehensive security coverage and deep information about any anomaly.
I was looking for a set of security tools ‘under one roof’. I wanted it to be better than the independent tool cornucopia that I used. We have the whole Rapid7 toolkit, and I can’t be more satisfied. Introducing Rapid7 brought us a deep insight into anomalies and threats. Remediation reports are also appreciated by our IT department. As a security professional, I love that I can confirm the results in other tools. You can also share data points between the tools, to see possible problems from many points of view.
Senior Security Engineer for Enterprise Architecture and Technological Innovation – June 3, 2019
The easy SIEM. Anywhere.
This is the SIEM tool that we used to collect data throughout the environment. That data informs the QSA about PCI compliance. It has helped to find problems, as well as streamline our PCI compliance reports. What used to be very manual and time-consuming is not to extract reports.
Jason LeBlanc, Consultant at Aon Integramark – June 11, 2019
Fast deployment, almost instantaneous vision.
I implemented InsightIDR in less than a day in all my
Infrastructure. After a few days and very little tuning, I got an incomparable view of what was happening in my environment. IDR has been key to reducing the amount of time spent investigating incidents to minutes. A key point was the need for light infrastructure and that agents send information to the cloud.
Health Engineer Safety Engineer – May 10, 2019
We have much more information about AlienVault and Rapid7. If you want to know more before deciding which SIEM tool suits you best, contact us. We offer the best tools in the market. Our team is here to advise you and help you get a more efficient IT environment.
