Microsoft Sentinel

Formerly Azure Sentinel

We were using an in-house SIEM solution in our organization wherein most of our log sources were placed in the cloud. We are using multiple services from Microsoft Cloud. Switching to a cloud-based SIEM provided by Microsoft itself has given us an excellent opportunity to parse and analyze our logs over the cloud itself. Hence, the transition from the traditional in-house SIEM to Sentinel occurred.

One of our client-first enterprise clients recently faced a challenge of effectively detecting and responding to security threats across its multi-cloud and on-premises environments. The organization has a diverse tech infrastructure and were struggling with the lack of centralized visibility into security events across their multi cloud environment, Inability to detect and respond to security threats timely and the need to meet industry specific compliance requirements while handling sensitive customer data. Microsoft Sentinel came up with some solution to address these challenges:
1. Centralized Security Data Collection : Microsoft Sentinel team configured the tool to collect security data from all the different cloud providers, on-premises servers, and security tools used by the organization. Azure Sentinel's extensive connectors and integrations ensured comprehensive data collection.
2. Security Analytics and Threat Detection: The implemented platform used built-in and custom detection rules to analyze the collected data for signs of suspicious or malicious activities. Machine learning algorithms and threat intelligence integration enhanced the organization's ability to identify threats.
3. Incident Investigation and Response: Security analysts used the centralized dashboard to investigate security incidents. Automated playbooks were then created to streamline incident response, allowing the organization to respond to threats more efficiently.
4. Compliance and Reporting: Azure Sentinel provided out-of-the-box compliance reports and templates, which helped the organization demonstrate compliance with industry-specific regulations. Custom reports and queries were also created to address specific compliance requirements.

Microsoft Sentinel is currently being used as our one stop where our team monitors all alerts we get on our Azure resources. Since everything is on a single platform it makes it easier to keep a track and prioritise on the alerts.

Microsoft Sentinel is the SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), according to Microsoft. Entirely cloud-based, Microsoft Sentinel requires little to no effort in terms of on-premise hosting requirements. Very user-friendly and very powerful, Microsoft Sentinel takes an important step from a "simple" SIEM to a SOAR, integrating both SIEM and XDR functionalities in a cloud-based product that is covered by the Microsoft Azure cloud power.

So as far as the Security Operations Center, they utilized it to protect the boundary to make sure no assets are getting hacked. If somebody does attempt to hack it or whatnot, quarantine that asset during the investigation, try to find out what happened with that asset and once they figure it out, remediate it and clear it up, making sure they continue to utilize the product to monitor that and other product within the organization.

Well, it's our SIEM, so it does all our correlation engines and data gathering, and we do a lot of querying in it.

We use it as our SOC tool for all the incidents, automation, and digging through logs, and connecting applications to Sentinel so we can see whatever logs come in from different applications.

Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-based comprehensive and robust SIEM (Security information and event management) that is used for a variety of company FW/VPN infrastructure security events tracking as well as end-user protection monitoring (it is easily connected to MS Defender). The huge list of built-in connectors for different solutions/hardware eliminates any deployment issues that we had with previous SIEM system deployments. With Microsoft Sentinel, we are able to centralize all the security operations at a single point.

Azure Sentinel was rolled out to the entire organization as part of a security initiative for our cloud environment. Being in a smaller IT group, but with lots of employees, it was important that we have a system that was awake when we weren't, and watching when we couldn't.

Azure Sentinel has been used by our headquarters as a SIEM solution. Easy to learn, set up and use. Because it is highly scalable and cloud based, it has become ideal for managing events and providing security automation by creating automated SOAR responses to different levels of incidents, from undiscovered, simple to more complex. It has collaborated a lot in making business decisions and providing more security for the team and the organization.