7 Best SIEM Tools for Real-Time Security & Event Management (2023)

SIEM Tools are essential for any business or organization that wants to secure its data and systems.

By monitoring activity and events in real-time, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools can help identify and respond to threats before they cause damage.

While remote monitoring tools exist, they might not be enough.

XDR software goes beyond monitoring to also include detection, investigation, and response capabilities in a single platform.

Going further, a SIEM tool then provides the most comprehensive and real-time security analysis.

This means that if you’re looking for a tool to help you secure your business or organization, a SIEM tool is the way to go.

But with so many options on the market, it can be hard to know which SIEM tool is right for you.

That’s why I’ve put together this list of the best tools available in the market right now.

Each of these tools has been selected for its features, affordability, and ease of use.

Keep reading to find out more.

What are the Best SIEM Tools?

The following are some of the best SIEM tools for Real-Time Security & Event Management on the market today.

1. ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer.

Best Overall For Security Information And Event Management.

ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer is an excellent solution for log management, allowing you to collect, monitor, and analyze event logs on-premises.

In addition, auditing and IT compliance are made easy with pre-configured reports and dashboards.

Ensuring that your logs comply with regulatory mandates can be a time-consuming process, but with EventLog Analyzer, this type of workflow is made much more straightforward.

Getting data from over 750 sources (without additional setups and right out of the box), you can manage, analyze, and report on all your security data in real-time.

You can also secure your network perimeter and endpoints against attacks with EventLog Analyzer’s powerful security event management features.

Key Features:

• Protect what matters most with event log management that collects, monitors, and analyzes logs from over 750 sources in real-time.
• Get automatic, real-time alerts on risky user behavior.
• Audit, manage and report on your security data more efficiently.
• With server log management, you can collect, monitor, and analyze event logs from one central location.
• Real-time event correlation detects attacks as they happen and speeds up incident response times.

Pricing:

There is a 30-day free trial, so you can try the software before buying.

You can then get a quote for the product.

2. RSA NetWitness.

Best For Detecting Malicious Activities.

RSA NetWitness allows you to see everything and know what is happening in your business.

It gives you unparalleled visibility into your entire IT environment providing real-time, contextual awareness and rapid detection of advanced threats and insider incidents.

Rapidly detect malicious activity, reduce false positives, and improve your security posture with the power of network security analytics.

With improved analyst productivity, you can do more with less.

In addition, security orchestration and automation capabilities make it easy to integrate with your existing security infrastructure and respond quickly to threats.

NetWitness also detects attacks that would have bypassed your other security controls in a fraction of the time, ensuring that you are always protected.

Key Features:

• Advanced analytics powered by machine learning with the scale of the cloud deliver early detection of anomalies that lead to external and internal threats.
• Increase visibility with the power of analytics across your organization for rapid detection of advanced threats and insider incidents.
• Get bite-size chunks of data that are easy to digest and act on.
• Reconstruct original events to determine intent and gain more significant insights.
• Allow threat hunting and response with platform tools and collaboration.

Pricing:

You’ll have to request a demo to find out the price of NetWitness.

3. Splunk Enterprise SIEM.

Best For Correlating Data Across Your Network.

If you want to reduce security breaches, then Splunk Enterprise SIEM is the tool for you.

It helps you to consolidate log data from multiple sources, identify patterns and trends, and take action on threats before they cause damage.

With an analytics-driven cloud SIEM, you can detect and respond to security threats in real-time.

In addition, Splunk Enterprise provides the ability to search and correlate data across your entire organization, making it easier to find and fix issues quickly.

By reducing the time to detect and respond to security threats, you can focus on your business – instead of dealing with security breaches.

You can also streamline your investigations to find the root cause of incidents faster.

Key Features:

• Correlate data from any data source, regardless of volume or variety
• With a faster time to value and the ability to index any data, regardless of volume or variety, you can quickly identify threats and find the answers you need.
• Get better security operations through prioritization, automation, and collaboration.
• Risk-based alerting and dashboards let you focus on the most critical threats and take action quickly.

Pricing:

• Splunk It Cloud: starts at $40 per host per month.
• Splunk Observability Cloud: starts at $65 per host per month.

Both of these are billed annually.

The Splunk Security Solutions, Splunk Cloud Platform, and Splunk Enterprise Security Platform are also different plans to consider.

4. LogRhythm.

Best For Ensuring Regulatory Compliance.

LogRhythm provides businesses and security operations teams with advanced and proactive threat detection, response, and investigation tools all in one SIEM platform.

It offers a comprehensive security intelligence solution that monitors and analyzes log data, network data, and endpoint data to detect malicious activity and improve security posture.

If you want to be more vigilant in your security posture and have advanced threat detection, then LogRhythm is the tool for you.

Ensure security and regulatory compliance and reduce the risk of data breaches with comprehensive security intelligence.

In addition, you can reduce (or even eliminate) blind spots so that you can have a more holistic view of your security posture.

You can also improve threat detection and response with the power of machine learning and advanced models that are updated as needed.

Key Features:

• Strengthen security operations by ingesting data from multiple data sources
• Limit damage and disruption with rapid response to threats in near-real time
• Shut down cyberattacks and prevent them from happening again
• Automate incident response so you won’t have to respond to every threat manually

Pricing:

You can schedule a live demo to understand the pricing better.

5. Micro Focus ArcSight.

Best For Empowering Your Security Team.

Micro Focus ArcSight is great if you want to empower your security operations team with the ability to identify and respond to threats in minutes, not hours or days.

It offers a centralized platform that consolidates data from disparate sources to help you detect and investigate threats.

With powerful, adaptable SIEM, you can detect threats and incidents quickly and then take the appropriate action.

With ArcSight’s scalable data collection framework, you can collect, process, and store any size data set with ease.

Key Features:

• Get the most from your current tools and data with correlation and analytics.
• Leverage pre-built connectors and out-of-the-box content to quickly analyze data and find insights.
• Detects threats and incidents in near-real-time with powerful, adaptable SIEM.
• Optimize your environment with real‑world intel from the ArcSight Ecosystem.
• With an intuitive user experience, you can get up and running quickly and efficiently.
• Powerful dashboards and reports give you at-a-glance insights into your security posture.

Pricing:

As with other SIEM products, you’ll have to request a demo for pricing information.

6. UnderDefense SIEM.

Best For Safeguarding Security Protocols.

UnderDefense SIEM provides expertise and resources to help organizations detect and prevent cyber threats.

It offers a centralized platform that collects data from disparate sources so that you can detect and investigate threats quickly.

24/7/365 security monitoring gives you round-the-clock protection against threats.

If you’re looking for a tool that can help with compliance, UnderDefense SIEM is the right choice.

SOC2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR are all security protocols that UnderDefense SIEM can help with.

In addition, this solution will help you find your weaknesses before the bad guys do.

Key Features:

• Managed detection & response means you don’t have to worry about staffing or infrastructure being less than what’s needed.
• Reduce the time it takes to find and fix issues by consolidating data from disparate sources into a single platform.
• Incident response plan templates help you quickly and easily create a response plan for any incident.
• Penetration testing services find your organization’s weak points before it’s too late.
• Virtual CISO ensures you have the expertise and resources you need to detect and prevent cyber threats.
• Cloud security monitoring gives you the peace of mind that your data is safe, no matter where it resides.

Pricing:

Get in touch with them for more information about their products and pricing that fit your needs.

7. Rapid7 InsightIDR.

Best For Anticipating Future Risks.

If you want your business to run as it should without interruption, Rapid7 InsightIDR is the SIEM for you.

It offers centralized logging and event management to consolidate data from various sources so you can detect and investigate threats quickly.

Without focusing on repetitive tasks, you can use your time to focus on more important things.

At the same time, you’ll be able to understand patterns and anticipate future risks.

Instantly elevate your outcomes with Rapid7’s expertise and resources by getting detailed insights on your security posture.

If you’re ready to say goodbye to alert fatigue and hello to better security, Rapid7 InsightIDR is a solution you should consider.

This SIEM solution is built on a solid foundation — agile, tailored, adaptable, and stored in the cloud.

You’ll be up and running quickly while continuously up-leveling your capabilities as you grow into the platform.

Key Features:

• Show immediate ROI with out-of-the-box content and pre-built connectors.
• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) gives you holistic visibility into your endpoint security posture.
• Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) gives you visibility into all network activity, helping you detect malicious or unauthorized behavior.
• User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) detects malicious, unauthorized, or abnormal user activity.
• Cloud integrations provide visibility into cloud and SaaS applications.

Pricing:

With a 30 day free trial that requires no credit card, you’ll be able to test out Rapid7 InsightIDR and see if it’s the right fit for your organization.

Other SIEM tools not mentioned in this article include IBM Qradar, Microsoft Azure Sentinel, AlienVault OSSIM, and SolarWinds Security Event Manager.

What Are SIEM Tools?

Security information and event management (SIEM) is a category of software that provides a holistic view of an organization’s security posture and helps to identify potential threats.

SIEM tools collect data from various sources, including firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS), endpoints, and networks, and consolidate all of it into a single platform for analysis.

This allows security teams to detect and respond to incidents more quickly.

Security information management (SIM) is a subset of SIEM that focuses on managing security-related data.

SIM tools provide a way to collect, store, and organize security-related data to be accessed and analyzed more easily.

SIEM and SIM tools are essential for organizations that want to manage their security posture and protect against potential threats effectively.

Benefits Of Choosing The Right SIEM Solution

The right SIEM solutions can provide several benefits, including:

• Centralized logging and event management to consolidate data from disparate sources
• The ability to detect and investigate threats quickly
• Improved security awareness and understanding of organization-wide security posture
• Greater visibility into cloud and SaaS applications
• The ability to automate the response to incidents

Having a unified enterprise security management and control across hybrid cloud workloads and data-center silos is no longer a nice-to-have.

It has become imperative for security teams to detect and mitigate incidents quickly.

As such, the market for SIEM and SIM tools is snowballing, and there are several options available, all with various features.

It is essential to select a solution that fits your organization’s needs.

Features Of The Best SIEM Security Tools

SIEM software comes in various shapes and sizes, but all solutions should include basic features.

Let’s have a look at these features.

Security Event Correlation And Alerts

Having security event correlation is critical for any SIEM tool. This means that the tool must identify related events and group them.

This makes it easier for security teams to investigate and respond to incidents.

In addition, security alerts are one of the essential features of a SIEM solution.

The alerts should be actionable, meaning that they provide enough information for security teams to take corrective action.

The alerts should also be customizable and can be tailored to the organization’s specific needs.

File Integrity

The right IT infrastructure security solution should include file integrity monitoring (FIM) to help protect your organization’s data.

FIM is the process of verifying the integrity of files.

This is done by comparing the file’s checksum with a known good value.

If the checksum of a file changes, it indicates that the file has been altered. This can be a sign of malware or other malicious activity.

The Right Metrics

Whether it’s the aggregation of logs or performance metrics, the ability to show what has changed over time is a critical function for SIEM.

It’s also essential to see what is expected to identify anomalies quickly.

This helps to reduce the time it takes to identify and respond to incidents.

Antivirus Protection

Having malware protection is essential for any organization.

Many service providers offer antivirus protection as part of their SIEM solution.

This can be a massive time-saver for security teams, as they will not have to manage multiple solutions.

Also, running a vulnerability assessment is a must.

This will help identify any weak points in your organization’s security posture and see which antivirus solutions will be most effective.

Software such as Mcafee is a pretty popular choice for antivirus protection.

Remediation As Part Of The Solution

When an incident occurs, it’s essential to have a solution that includes remediation.

This means that the SIEM tool will help to correct the issue automatically.

Remediation can also include resetting passwords, removing malware, and other actions.

Since the use cases of SIEM are so varied, it can be challenging to determine which tool is best for your organization’s remediation.

Having unified security management and control across hybrid cloud workloads and data-center silos helps with such remediation since it gives security visibility and a single point of control.

Ability To Target Different Platforms

Whether your system runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, or any other platform, the SIEM tool of choice must cater to your needs and allows you an interface to understand what’s going on.

Data Collection And Consolidation

SIEM tools need to collect data from various sources, including firewalls, endpoints, networks, and potentially even an IDS/IPS SIEM system.

The data should be consolidated into a single platform for analysis so that security teams can detect and respond to incidents more quickly.

This data consolidation also allows organizations to track their security posture over time and identify any changes in activity that may indicate a threat.

Data Analysis

SIEM software should include powerful data analysis capabilities so that security teams can better understand their IT security posture and potential threats.

The data analysis should include features such as:

• Correlation of events
• Trend analysis
• Anomaly detection
• Visualization of data

This allows organizations to identify any potential threats and take corrective action quickly.

Event Data Reporting

Information and event management is critical for any organization, and proper reporting is essential for understanding the effectiveness of your security posture.

SIEM tools should include comprehensive reporting features to generate reports on various criteria.

These criteria could include:

• Events per day, week, month, or year
• Severity of events
• Source of events
• Type of event
• Date and time of the event

Reports can be used to help identify any potential weak spots in your security posture and to track the progress of your security efforts over time.

Threat Intelligence

Most enterprise security teams are now using threat intelligence feeds to help them identify potential threats.

SIEM tools should include support for threat intelligence feeds so that you can get real-time updates on the latest threats.

This will help you identify and respond to incidents more quickly.

Works In The Cloud

A growing number of organizations are moving their applications and data to the cloud.

This presents a new set of challenges for security teams, as they need to have visibility into the cloud environment and protect their data.

SIEM tools should include support for the cloud so that you can get real-time visibility into your cloud workloads and protect your data.

Compliance Reporting

While log management capabilities are essential for any organization, they must comply with regulatory requirements.

SIEM tools should include comprehensive compliance reporting capabilities so that you can generate reports on a variety of criteria.

Compliance is all about proving that you take the necessary steps to protect your data and comprehensive reporting features can help you do this.

Enterprise Security

Finally, security events can severely impact an organization, both financially and in reputation.

SIEM tools should include features that help you manage enterprise security correctly.

This includes features such as:

• centralized console for managing all your security events
• The ability to respond to alerts quickly
• Automated incident response capabilities

Having enterprise cybersecurity teams that can use event management tools and the right SIEM solution to identify and mitigate the impact of security events quickly is essential.

This can be the difference between an organization that can quickly recover from a security incident and one that suffers long-term damage.

SIEM Tools – FAQ

What Are SIEM Tools In Business?

SIEM tools are software applications that allow organizations to collect, analyze, and report security events.

They provide real-time event management and security intelligence so that organizations can detect and respond to incidents as quickly as possible.

Are There Any Open Source SIEM Tools?

Yes, there are several open-source SIEM tools available. Some of the more popular ones include Splunk, ELK Stack, and Graylog.

What Are Nextgen SIEM Tools?

Nextgen SIEM tools offer comprehensive data analysis capabilities, event data reporting, threat intelligence support, and cloud visibility.

They are designed to help organizations manage their enterprise security.

What Is The Process Of Normalization?

The normalization process is about converting data into a format that is consistent and can be easily analyzed.

This is essential for SIEM tools, as they need to analyze data quickly and efficiently.

What Is SOC?

A SOC (Security Operations Center) is a centralized location where security teams can collect, analyze, and respond to security events.

SIEM tools are often used in SOCs to help security teams manage their security operations more effectively.

Wrap Up

Security events can severely impact an organization in several different areas.

As such, SIEM tools should include features that help you manage enterprise security.

The above tools will help you quickly identify and mitigate the impact of security events.

To recap, the best SIEM tools in the market right now are:

• ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer: Best overall for security information and event management.
• RSA NetWitness: Best for detecting malicious activities.
• Splunk Enterprise SIEM: Best for correlating data across your network.

Be sure to look at the features of each tool before you make your decision, and don’t forget to consult with an expert to help you choose the right tool for your organization.

How important is the real-time security of data and event management in your organization? Have you ever used SIEM tools before?

What was your experience like?

Let me know in the comments below.

Further reading on AdamEnfroy.com: In case the worst had to happen, and your organization’s data got lost, here are the best data recovery software right now.

Moreover, if you want to have the best quality data at your fingertips to start off with, the proper market research tools can help you get there.