AlienVault USM - A Solid Tool to Launch Your SecOps Program

AlienVault is a great SIEM for organizations who are either new to security operational logging, and wish to purchase a sound solution at a lower price point, or those with a smaller staff and potentially IT budget that wishes to buy a solution that can accomplish many different tasks. Our use of the platform extends across the global organization. We have documented multiple use cases that we are working through within the AlienVault platform such as vulnerability management and scanning, malware detection on clients and servers, malicious network traffic moving laterally and vertically throughout our environment, etc. As is the case with any SIEM, they are only as effective as the log sources that they ingest allow them to be. We are pulling in Windows client and server event logs (filtered to specific EventID's), DNS, DHCP, AWS CloudTrail/CloudWatch logs, NIDS sensor logs, firewall logs, and are also working to integrate the solution with other corporate systems to extend its capability, such as our ITSM. AlienVault is pretty featured rich compared to other SIEM solutions, but those features are mostly good, not great. There is also a growing list of 3rd party integrations as well, which can make the solution even stronger. With that said, there are other SIEM solutions that offer more flexible deployment models, have more 3rd party integrations, and offer more extensibility in terms of holistically supporting the incident response process. Our organization has found AlienVault to work pretty well for us, as this is the first SIEM the business has deployed. Additionally, we are early on in the process of cybersecurity program development, so AlienVault's inclusion of features such as vulnerability scanning and file integrity monitoring extend its value.