Monthly Blog Round-Up – July 2016

Here is my next monthly "Security Warrior" blog round-up of top 5 popular posts/topics this month:

1. “Why No Open Source SIEM, EVER?” contains some of my SIEM thinking from 2009. Is it relevant now? You be the judge.  Succeeding with SIEM requires a lot of work, whether you paid for the software, or not. BTW, this post has an amazing “staying power” that is hard to explain – I suspect it has to do with people wanting “free stuff” and googling for “open source SIEM” …  [235 pageviews]
2. “New SIEM Whitepaper on Use Cases In-Depth OUT!” (dated 2010) presents a whitepaper on select SIEM use cases described in depth with rules and reports [using now-defunct SIEM product]; also see this SIEM use case in depth and this for a more current list of popular SIEM use cases. Finally, see our 2016 research on security monitoring use cases here! [156 pageviews]
3. “Simple Log Review Checklist Released!” is often at the top of this list – this aging checklist is still a very useful tool for many people. “On Free Log Management Tools” is a companion to the checklist (updated version) [56 pageviews]
4. My classic PCI DSS Log Review series is always popular! The series of 18 posts cover a comprehensive log review approach (OK for PCI DSS 3+ as well), useful for building log review processes and procedures , whether regulatory or not. It is also described in more detail in our Log Management book and mentioned in our PCI book (out in its 4th edition!)[40+ pageviews to the main tag]
5. “SIEM Resourcing or How Much the Friggin’ Thing Would REALLY Cost Me?” is a quick framework for assessing the SIEM project (well, a program, really) costs at an organization (much more details on this here in this paper). [70 pageviews of total 2891 pageviews to all blog page]

In addition, I’d like to draw your attention to a few recent posts from my Gartner blog [which, BTW, now has about 5X of the traffic of this blog]: 

 

Current research on SOC and threat intelligence [2 projects]:

• About The Tri-Team Model of SOC, CIRT, “Threat Something”
• Baby’s First Threat Intel Usage Questions
• How a Lower Maturity Security Organization Can Use Threat Intel?
• New Research Starting Soon: Threat Intel, SOC, etc
• Your SOC Nuclear Triad

 

Miscellaneous fun posts:

• Can I Detect Advanced Threats With Just Flows/IPFIX?
• Sad Hilarity of Predictive Analytics in Security?
• Anton’s Favorite Threat Hunting Links
• My Detection Confidence Survey Results
• No, Virginia, It Does NOT Mean That! (detection and prevention)
• “Deception as Detection” or Give Deception a Chance?
• Jumping Security Maturity FAIL!
• Security: Automate And/Or Die?
• On Tanks vs Tractors
• Defeat The Casual Attacker First!!
• On “Defender’s Advantage”

(see all my published Gartner research here)
Also see my past monthly and annual “Top Popular Blog Posts” – 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015.
Disclaimer: most content at SecurityWarrior blog was written before I joined Gartner on Aug 1, 2011 and is solely my personal view at the time of writing. For my current security blogging, go here.

Previous post in this endless series:

• Monthly Blog Round-Up – June 2016
• All posts tagged monthly