Regardless of the organization’s type, size, or industry, they are all vulnerable to various cyberattacks that can disrupt, destroy, or deploy malicious elements in a business network, impacting data integrity or stealing controlled information.
CISOs and SecOps teams of modern enterprises need to be aware that cybercriminals can compromise the business network, systems, or applications; to steal information by leveraging multiple vectors.
Businesses need the best cybersecurity measures and tools like Anti-virus and anti-malware software, Penetration testing tools, Firewalls, and Intrusion Prevention Systems to strengthen their security posture. Moreover, organizations also need to implement Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms, and Vulnerability scanners to manage sophisticated threats and risks effectively.
Implementing Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) enables organizations to keep malicious actors out of the business network. A few tools notify the security operations centers (SOCs) about the cybersecurity incident to prevent or mitigate a cyber-attack.
Businesses must have security alerts for all cybersecurity incidents to ensure the application of effective response strategies before it becomes a serious threat. These alerts can also become a challenge for all the cybersecurity analysts and managers because of the increasing SIEM false positives.
What Are SIEM False Positives?
Erroneous cybersecurity alerts created by the SIEM providers are known as SIEM false positives. The vendors or tools alert the reams that there is a potential breach, infection, or attack sign in the systems, wherein, in reality, it is not a real threat.
In this case, the positive result of a cyberattack evaluation is false. Unidentified network traffic, Software bugs, or poorly written software algorithms can lead to SIEM false positives. In this article, let’s focus on the best ways to minimize SIEM false positives:
Set false positives parameters
CISOs need to set an accurate alert or notification definition that can have potential dangers and requires immediate attention. Anything other than the issues that need immediate attention will create SIEM false positives. It does not prove that nothing happened in the business network; however, it did not require immediate action.
SecOps teams, rather than focusing on what is accurate, should focus on what is critical to simplify the alert management process. It can be one of the toughest challenges for security teams to accomplish. If no action is required for the security alert, it is a false positive. Security leaders must prevent such incidents from creating alerts while setting false positive parameters.
Eliminate unnecessary rules
Most organizations partnered with SIEM vendors may leave the default mode on. The SIEM provider enforces a few rules for a specific network, device, or IT infrastructure. The organization can eliminate the rules if it does not have an application, device, or need. Enforcing unnecessary rules will create false positives that the security teams can avoid.
It is crucial to enable those rules that help organizations detect potential threats. Business leaders should evaluate their governance policies regularly to determine what rules are helping them to identify their threats and what rules are creating false positives.
Customize rules according to the IT environment thresholds
Rules are nothing, but this happened multiple times, or similar things occurred. Every organization will face a certain set of potential risks based on their industry. Enterprises need to be aware of their threshold and define the rules based on that.
SecOps teams need to find the perfect line between normal and abnormal traffic to determine the abnormal one and restrict it from entering the business network. Organizations must customize the SIEM rules based on their IT infrastructure’s threshold to reduce false positives.
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Keep context as a top priority
Many SIEM providers do not offer this capability; hence businesses need to consider this a top priority before making a purchase decision. Context is an essential key that SecOps teams can consider to reduce SIEM false positives.
For instance, an organization gets a notification from the SIEM vendor that they have identified a severe threat, like an SQL injection attack against one server. It is only a severe threat if the organization has SQL on the server. If organizations have a different SQL server, this alert is a false-positive. The best SIEM providers can understand if an attack can be successful.
SIEM with Configuration management data can be tremendously beneficial for organizations to eliminate false positives.
CISOs should ensure with the SIEM provider that they have a tool with change management information integrated and includes a change management database (CMDB). Organizations must change their vendor if the SIEM vendor does not understand critical context configuration and asset data.
SIEM false positives can drain the security teams with irrelevant information and focus on unnecessary issues. Organizations need to minimize the SIEM false positives to concentrate on real issues that can become sophisticated threats. These are a few strategies that SecOps teams and CISOs can consider in reducing SIEM false positives.
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