The task of stringing together a set of events and finding correlation between them and the events they in turn produce is at its core what event correlator software does. Managing security, detecting and limiting fraud and monitoring your network’s application logs are just a few of the assignments your event correlator will ultimately be responsible for. Being able to track and analyze all of your organization’s digitally logged events will help you in real-time ensure that your IT department and in turn company will be running at its highest level of efficiency at all times.

One example of a malicious intruder effort that event correlator software can prevent is an all out brute force attack by an intruder trying to access your system in a traditional false login attempt. In this case, repeated attempted logins show up in your event logs which can then set a trigger to notify you of the suspicious activity to take action on it. A log like this one, that is continually produced and spewed across your logs, can easily be picked up by an event correlator but almost certainly missed if being done manually, which can be random at best in thwarting attacks.

One of the major points of having a solid event correlator is to limit the amount of noise that floods your logs and IT world on a daily basis. Often times, much of that activity and bombardment of event logs are unimportant, but with no software telling you that your IT department spends times on things that do drive value and are no threat to security or efficiency. With this said, a feature to always consider in an event correlator is one that can notify you via alerts in real time of any potential attacks or threats to your network based off a pattern of events that you have pre-programmed. Weather it be via email, SMS, or even a built in alert system to the software, it’s a good idea to look for an event correlator software that can get you notified immediately of any potential issues. The quicker you and your team can react to a potentially harmful event to your network the quicker you can neutralize it and keep business running as normal.

Having an event correlator tool or suite of event correlation tools is becoming more and more commonplace and a staple of IT departments throughout the world. At its purest form and purpose, an event correlator tool gives you the ease of mind that your network is being monitored and accounted for at all times, even when you are not at the office or paying attention. As much as companies rely on their network and digital setups, one attack or lapse in security could cripple your entire company’s operations. This can be especially true if you are an online retailer of any kind. Just a single day offline, especially if it is around the holidays when attacks can often occur, can be a massive blow to sales and ultimately the future of your company. Various issues and security breach attempts will ultimately happen on your network no matter the size or security measures. When they do, it’s important to use your event correlator as a tool to conduct a root cause analysis so you can see what went wrong and how to prevent the same issue in the future.

Finding the right event correlator can be a daunting task but by following the advice here and doing your proper due diligence you can make it simpler. Before making your purchase, try and find a tool that offers a free demo version so you can see if the usability of the software is one that fit’s your team.

Analyzing and correlating events on your networks and system infrastructure has long been a chore for company’s IT departments both big and small. A suite of tools is often critical to manage such events, and that all begins with a sufficient event correlation manager. These days, applications dominate the world of software and IT tools alike. With all of these applications, spanning across various platforms, servers and computers, events are happening amongst the application nodes and need monitoring constantly.

One feature and one of the best ways to utilize your event correlation tool is to write filters and rules to single out critical events and set rules that’s track the highest volume of specific events that your network monitors. By finding a tool that takes an emphasis on this feature, you can save your company a ton of money by reducing the large amount of payroll hours that it takes to write these extensive and often complicate set of rules.

Another major feature to consider when looking at event correlation manager tools is one that his highly automated. Algorithms help automate the correlating of events immensely by constantly learning new patterns and seeking out unique identifiers to correlate events and analyze the relationships between them in real time. When searching for outliers and complicated patterns of events, a human alone cannot adequately track and identify what’s important. A good event correlation manager will come ready with algorithm management and make a difference in performance almost right away.

As previously mentioned, applications while useful and dominating in today’s tech landscape, can create a plethora of problems generating events and alerts that can clog up networks and reduce efficiency. Especially with cloud based systems of all kinds becoming more and more commonplace, events are happening all over you network and your staff should not be burdened with keeping an eye on them. Connections generating event data at every minute of the day needs an event correlation manager to keep an eye on them and make sure nothing is amuck. Often times IT directors are spending an inordinate and unnecessary amount of time resolving issues that the proper set of event correlation tools can take care of seamlessly.

Finding an event correlation manager that produces aesthetically nice yet comprehensive reports is a feature you should not overlook. One of the most common tasks you (or someone on your staff) will complete is running reports that display your logs and alert you to potential threats. From IT operations to authentications, change management, endpoint monitoring and most importantly security, having a tool that can easily produce reports is a real game changer. Depending on the industry of your company, compliance requirements often come into effect and reporting is critical to ensure you remain compliant and lose no efficiency as your business expands and navigates the business landscape moving forward.

As with any tool or software you are considering, it’s often a great idea to see if the potential tool or software has a free demo so you can get a feel for the nuances of it. Not only is it good practice from a usability standpoint, but it will also let you see if it is compatible with your other suite of tools, software and applications that you currently use daily to operate your business. When using the demo, also check out the software company’s customer service and support in case you do run into issues down the line that need out of house assistance. While attaining the correct event correlation manager is often critical to IT department’s efficiency, the durability and long term reliability of the tool is equally important.

At its foundation and as the title would suggest, event correlation is a tool that is used by IT managers across the globe to track, analyze and report on various events spanning across their network from applications, routers and other devices. The massive volume of these events happening minute to minute on your network is just too much for a human being to keep track of, and an event correlation tool looks for patterns from pre-set rules that trigger alerts for the IT department to look into. In today’s piece, we take a look at the various event correlation techniques that IT professionals successfully use.

In all of the event correlation techniques we will touch on today, there are a few common themes that will remain true throughout. First and foremost, they all are based on finding and notifying the user of potentially harmful events. Secondly, they are all themed with finding the actual cause of the issue you are facing. And as the name would suggest, all of the following event correlation techniques correlate events to single them out and prepare you and your team for action moving forward surrounding the events in question.

Widely considered one of the most successful event correlation techniques is a technique called rule-based reasoning. Rule based reasoning at its core uses what is referred to as a knowledge base to create a chain reaction type of rule that says if something happens, do this. Rules within the rule based reasoning are how the system knows which operational actions that need to be carried out. The technique also uses what is called a working memory that learns and will ultimately realize for you when your network goes into a dangerous mode. Within it, it logs information about the networking being analyzed and can provide real-time feedback to you and your team. In conjunction with the knowledge base, an interference engine takes a look at the current status of on the rule-base and ties it to a similar output within the rule. Once this takes places, the knowledge base puts an action into effect in real-time using the working memory to do so. One thing to note and keep in mind if you decide to move forward with this approach, is that as the working memory is more fully utilized, the needs for the associated memory grows quickly.

Another one of the more popular event correlation techniques is a technique referred to as the codebook approach. In the codebook approach, a causality graph model identifies the fundamental relationship between problems and the associated symptoms and creates a unique code that can be tied to the problem. With this, you can quickly identify known issues by referring to the matching code giving you and your team the chance to act on it as fast as possible. The algorithm itself is code-based by nature, and can easily recognize potentially dangerous event correlations.
In summary, there is no full proof completely perfect event correlation technique. The thing to remember when thinking about event correlation techniques is to choose one that your team can implement efficiently and that does not cause a disruption in the effective use of your event correlation tool itself. Also, when researching and ultimately deciding on an event correlation technique, it’s not required to only choose one. A hybrid approach of multiple event correlation techniques is common and when done correctly can be quite effective in solving problems and successfully conducting your root cause analysis. Combining rule based reasoning with another approach called case based reasoning, is one example of a hybrid type approach that can pay dividends.

In the world of IT, event correlation is a common and often critical practice that company’s need to ensure maximum efficiency and security. In today’s article we take a look at the intricacies and features to look for when starting the search to acquire the appropriate suite of IT event correlation tools and software for your company. While the to be mentioned features are important, it’s equally important to way the pros and cons of every software and ensure its usefulness in your IT department’s structure.

Event correlation software at its core tracks events that occur on your networks and analyze how and why they interact with each other in the way they do. It not only ensures maximum efficiency for your company by catching potential slowdowns before they happen, but it also monitors your network’s security and looks for threats that may be lurking on your network. Not only does IT event correlation software monitor the events from your routers and switches, but it also keeps an eye on the interactions between your applications in real time and use a custom set of rules and filters ensure you and your team miss nothing.

One feature to consider when looking at event correlation software is the ability for the software to notify in you in real time of any incoming threats from events on your network. A solid set of system alerts can make the difference between catching what is initially a minor issue before spread and causing wide spread havoc to your network and company. Data is everywhere, and setting up alerts to keep an eye on them is widely considered a must have.
Another feature that is often considered critical when searching for the best IT event correlation software for your needs, is a term called compression. Essentially. Compression singles out events that continually happen over and over. At its core, it takes out duplicate events and combines them into one so that hundreds of the same event come through as a single alert. For example, if an application connection fails 3,000 times over the course of a day, the alert is pushed through as “application connection failed 3,000 times” instead of receiving 3,000 separate alerts. Not having the ability to find repetitive events and send them through as a single event and notification can really turn into a nuisance.

Ultimately, some form of IT event correlation tools are becoming as common place in IT departments as network monitoring tools or application monitoring software. The simple awareness that IT event correlation gives you will instantly give you peace of mind that your network is being watched around the clock, and limit the amount of man hours spent manually checking on it. When problems are found, conducting a root cause analysis to find how the issue happened and implement ways to prevent it in the future is a great habit to form and the proper event correlation software will help you to do that.
Most of the IT event correlation software in the marketplace today offers some form of trial or free demo that you can download to really get a feel of how usable the software will be for you and your team. Often times it’s a good idea to have some members of your team that will be using the software give it a spin as well to make sure it’s a good fit. While most IT event correlation software are compatible with all operating systems, downloading a demo will ensure that it is and also ensure that it interacts with your other suite of applications and software efficiently and smoothly.

We hear the term tossed around the IT landscape paired with different jargon such as “event correlation analysis” or “event correlation techniques.” But exactly what is event correlation? Essentially, event correlation is a technique for making sense of the enormous amount of events that data or security centers process and ultimately analyze on an hourly and daily basis. While in use, your event correlation tool is constantly sensing and analyzing the relationships between the events it is processing.

Every year data centers grow in size and complexity at a compounding speed. With that said, being able to answer the question “What is event correlation?” could become a must-know in your organization. Within your company data is coming from a plethora of sources. Compiled inside of the data, event correlation helps to identify the events (or specific data points) that can make a substantial difference to your business and how they can relate to the other events and data points in your system. In many ways, the short answer for what is event correlation it is a tool that lessens the flurry of activity that is unimportant so IT can focus on the activities and issues that substantially matter to the department and overall business objectives.

Part of the question of “what is event correlation?” is being able to recognize what kind of data and from what source of data we are referring to. While there are many examples and every organization will be different, security events, server records, application log errors and failures, alerts such as Simple Network Management Protocol traps, suspicious firewall traffic and operating system logs are just a few that come to mind. Event correlation allows for all of those often simple fixes to be recognized quickly and presented to the IT manager in a way such that he or she can maximize their time.

When thinking about “what is event correlation” it’s important to note that when referring to real-time event correlation, security is everything. Having an event correlation tool can deal with incoming threats and potential data breaches. The critical information that your company values so much is under constant attacks from hackers attempting to infiltrate your network and steal your sensitive information. Whether you are dealing with the threat in real time as it happens or are investigating it afterwards, having event correlation tools to help you do that could make the difference between a minor and major slowdown of your entire organization. If there is no event correlation tool to automate this process, a manual investigation will take an enormous amount of time.

Event correlation can also help to prevent attacks by setting up patterns that will trigger an alert to investigate. By setting up a rule, you can track “attack patterns” that when a certain pattern of events happen on your network, the event correlation tool recognizes it as a threat and notifies you instantly via text message or email.

The question of “what is event correlation?” has both a simple and complex answer. Above all, it’s important to recognize that by having a strong set of event correlation tools will make you and your staff as efficient as possible and make the best use of your time and skills. It will also help to maximize your company’s revenues by ensuring there is as little downtime as possible. Event correlation allows IT departments to gain near maximum visibility into their network operations while allowing them to monitor both security and efficiency. As a large proponent of event correlation software, one would argue that you are taking a risk more-so by not having at least one.

Acquiring the correct suite of event correlation and analysis tools can make all the difference in the world in minimizing your organization’s exposure to incoming threats and decrease the vulnerability that it will face as it grows in size. If you are tasked with this important purchase, you’ll want to consider a plethora of important features as you conduct your research. In today’s piece, we will talk about some of those features that will be critical in protecting your company’s most valuable data and information.

Essentially, event correlation is a way to make economical and layman sense of a large number of actions and isolating the handful of events that are most critical to the larger data set. Event correlation and analysis tools help get this done by scoping out and analyzing the relationships between all of the events and honing in on the most important.

Whether you are a security analyst or just an IT professional charged with protecting your company’s networks and servers, event correlation and analysis should be a main tool in your arsenal and be actively used. The log correlation contains clues and tidbits about how your entire network communicates both inward and outward so when it comes to troubleshooting or security intelligence, the event correlation log should be your best friend. Almost every security breach has evidence of the breach in the event correlation log but the signs are not obvious. With that said event correlation and the analysis of it could often be extremely complicated and-so looked over even though it’s obvious importance. Event correlation and analysis tools help to bridge that gap of cryptic language and convoluted system language that can often make the difference between a great IT security department and one that is constantly on the phone troubleshooting their own systems!

Security breaches and incoming threat misses ultimately do happen no matter how prepared you think you are as an IT department or company. Event correlation and analysis tools constantly scan your event log data searching for clues that you will need using an automated process. You as the IT security professional need to be asking five things about the breach: where, when, who, what and how. Intelligence with in your event correlation and analysis suite will start asking those questions before your team even knows what hit them.

Using event correlation rules to set up things like alerts and automated log reports is another critical feature to consider when looking for the perfect set of event correlation and analysis tools. These rules will simply alert people how to analyze the log events by automatically correlating the data where appropriate. By being alerted early on certain processes of log data, the right course of action can start place so it’s nipped in the tail early, limiting potential widespread damage and chaos for your IT department. A key to the alert feature is finding one that can notify you or your team in real-time. Most event correlation and analysis tools even offer the ability to set these alerts up custom, ensuring you can be thorough in your protection. Where can you expect these attacks to come from? Spoofing, brute force authentication, web service attacks and client side exploits are just a few culprits to be on the lookout for.

Finding the right event correlation and analysis tools for your custom set of needs can be a tedious process, as it should be given the magnitude of security it can bring you. All of the features mentioned today are just a few to consider in your search. As with most software you purchase in this day and age, it’s always a good idea to look for a free trial version to make sure it’s one you can use adequately.

Being in charge of protecting your company from the ever growing list of incoming online threats is no small task and one that is a constant worry of IT professionals everywhere. Obtaining event correlation software can limit your exposure and decrease your company’s vulnerability to incoming attacks in a number of ways. From accelerating the incident’s response time and detecting the threat in near real time, the right event correlation software will prove to be a huge asset in addition to the arsenal of tools you are already using. In today’s article we take a look at some of the features to consider when picking the best software to fit your needs and protect your company’s most important information.

One of the most important features to consider when looking for your software is a software that has an alarms or alert feature that acts in real time to alert you of attacks and potential breaches in security. You not only want to get alerted when you’re under attack, but you want to understand how your assets are being attacked and find out who’s doing it. The more detailed information you can get about the attack the better; such as attacker intent, specific remediation guidance or detailed malicious actor information. It’s important while thinking about all of this, to ensure that the alerts and alarms you will have set up can be transmitted in real-time. As with threats of any kind, the faster you are able to be aware of them and neutralize them the less damage they will wreck on your company.

An incident over your networks or servers will inevitably happen. When it does it’s critical to be able to determine five major things about the attack; how, what, who, when and where. Since your event log data doesn’t have all the clues your team will need, an automated event correlation feature can be very useful. Instead of your already busy IT team spending their day’s researching and investigating every incident, an automation feature automatically produces a report with all of the aforementioned details. By having this threat intelligence feature within your event correlation software, your team can focus finding solutions to the attacks and become smarter on how to prevent more in the future.

Furthering the importance of an alert type feature for your event correlation software, many of the event correlation software available on the market today offer a feature that alerts you to known “bad actors” that may be targeting your network, such as known malicious IP addresses, various malware or domains. All of this data will be listed in your log files and a good event correlation software will be able to identify them and display them to you, once again, in real time being the key. Custom rules is a feature that allows you to detect expected specific incoming attacks, and ignore or place less emphasis on others. Some of the most common attacks to consider if you are setting up custom rules are web service attacks, policy violations, spoofing, brute force authentication and client side exploits.

The features mentioned above are just examples of a few to consider when making the investment into a event correlation software for your company. As with any software you are thinking about making an investment in, it’s important to consider not only is it a great fit for you, but your team as well. One way to confirm the overall intuitiveness of software is to download a free trial version of it. This will not only allow you to see if the software is one you can pick up and train your team on easily, but also see if it is compatible with the litany of other software you use.