In today’s digital world, businesses need to be vigilant about potential cyberattacks. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions help organisations monitor their networks for unusual activity that could be a sign of a threat. However, a major challenge that security teams face is dealing with false positives—alerts that flag potential problems but turn out to be harmless. Constantly responding to false alarms can waste time and energy, making it harder to identify real threats. Thankfully, SIEM solutions have evolved to address this issue using a few clever strategies.
Here are our 5 ways to reduce false alerts in SIEM
- Tuning and Customisation
Think of SIEM systems like a personalised security system for your home. If it’s not set up properly, it might constantly alert you whenever a harmless event happens—like when your cat walks past a motion sensor. To prevent this, SIEM tools can be fine-tuned to your business’s specific needs. This means adjusting how the system reacts to certain activities based on your organisation’s environment. For example, by setting custom rules, SIEM software can ignore routine actions like scheduled software updates and only alert you when something out of the ordinary happens. This customisation helps reduce unnecessary alerts and keeps your team focused on real threats.
- Machine Learning and AI
Modern SIEM tools are becoming smarter by using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. These technologies allow the system to learn from past experiences, much like how you learn to recognise familiar patterns over time. For instance, if your SIEM system has repeatedly flagged a specific type of behaviour as harmless, it can “learn” from this and stop alerting you to the same event in the future. By understanding what normal behaviour looks like, the system can more accurately detect when something truly suspicious occurs. This way, you won’t have to constantly review alerts for things that aren’t really threats.
- Contextual Analysis
Imagine if your security system could give you more details about each alert—like whether it’s coming from a valuable asset, such as a safe containing important documents, or just an empty room. SIEM systems do something similar by adding context to the alerts they generate. They consider information like which user is involved, how critical the system is, or whether the asset has any known vulnerabilities. This extra layer of information helps you quickly assess how serious an alert is, reducing the likelihood of treating a false alarm as a critical issue.
- Feedback Loops
SIEM systems can improve their accuracy over time by learning from the feedback provided by security analysts. When your team reviews an alert and determines whether it was a real threat or a false positive, the system stores this information. This creates a continuous improvement loop, where the SIEM solution refines its detection capabilities, resulting in fewer false positives in the future.
- Security Orchestration
Finally, SIEM solutions can integrate with other security tools, such as endpoint detection systems, to verify whether an alert is valid. By cross-checking with additional sources of information, the SIEM system can confirm if a potential threat is real or just a false alarm. This orchestration between different security tools ensures that your team only needs to respond when it’s truly necessary.
One of the most advanced SIEM solutions available today is ManageEngine Log360. Log360 takes a proactive approach to reducing false positives through a combination of machine learning, contextual threat analysis, and smart thresholds. It learns from your network’s behaviour to automatically adjust detection criteria, making it smarter over time. By enriching each alert with vital context—such as user details, asset criticality, and risk scores—Log360 allows security teams to quickly assess the seriousness of potential threats.
Additionally, its guided investigation tools and seamless integration with other security solutions ensure that you’re not just responding to alerts but responding to the right ones. With Log360, businesses can significantly reduce the noise of false positives and focus their attention where it matters most.
Learn more about ManageEngine Log360 here.
Author: Georgina van den Heever, Content Marketing Coordinator, ITR Technology
References:
ManageEngine: https://www.manageengine.com/log-management/siem/what-is-siem.html?pos=SIEM
ManageEngine: https://www.manageengine.com/security-information-event-management.html?
ManageEngine: https://www.manageengine.com/log-management/