Friday, August 31, 2018

Monthly Blog Round-Up – August 2018

Here is my next monthly "Security Warrior" blog round-up of top 5 popular posts based on last
month’s visitor data  (excluding other monthly or annual round-ups):
  1. “New SIEM Whitepaper on Use Cases In-Depth OUT!” (dated 2010 – much ancient!) 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 research on developing security monitoring use cases here – and that we updated for 2018. A lot more SIEM use case discussion is coming, here is a new post for 2018 SIEM use cases.
  2. Simple Log Review Checklist Released!” is often at the top of this list – this rapidly aging checklist is still a useful tool for many people. “On Free Log Management Tools” (also aged quite a bit by now) is a companion to the checklist (updated version)
  3. Why No Open Source SIEM, EVER?” contains some of my SIEM thinking from 2009 (oh, wow, ancient history!). 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” … 
  4. Updated With Community Feedback SANS Top 7 Essential Log Reports DRAFT2” is about top log reports project of 2008-2013, I think these are still very useful in response to “what reports will give me the best insight from my logs?”
  5. Again, my classic PCI DSS Log Review series is still very popular! The series of 18 posts cover a comprehensive log review approach (OK for PCI DSS 3+ even though it predates it), 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  – note that this series is even mentioned in some PCI Council materials.
In addition, I’d like to draw your attention to a few recent posts from my Gartner blog [which, BTW, now has more than 7X of the traffic of this blog]: 

Critical reference posts:
Current research on SIEM:
Current research on SOC:
Miscellaneous fun posts:

(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, 2016, 2017.

Disclaimer: most content at SecurityWarrior blog was written before I joined Gartner on August 1, 2011 and is solely my personal view at the time of writing. For my current security blogging, go here.

Other posts in this endless series:

Wednesday, August 01, 2018

Monthly Blog Round-Up – July 2018

Here is my next monthly "Security Warrior" blog round-up of top 5 popular posts based on last
month’s visitor data  (excluding other monthly or annual round-ups):
  1. “New SIEM Whitepaper on Use Cases In-Depth OUT!” (dated 2010 – much ancient!) 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 research on developing security monitoring use cases here – and that we updated for 2018. A lot more SIEM use case discussion is coming, here is a new post for 2018 SIEM use cases.
  2. Why No Open Source SIEM, EVER?” contains some of my SIEM thinking from 2009 (oh, wow, ancient history!). 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” … 
  3. Simple Log Review Checklist Released!” is often at the top of this list – this rapidly aging checklist is still a useful tool for many people. “On Free Log Management Tools” (also aged quite a bit by now) is a companion to the checklist (updated version)
  4. Updated With Community Feedback SANS Top 7 Essential Log Reports DRAFT2” is about top log reports project of 2008-2013, I think these are still very useful in response to “what reports will give me the best insight from my logs?”
  5. Again, my classic PCI DSS Log Review series is still very popular! The series of 18 posts cover a comprehensive log review approach (OK for PCI DSS 3+ even though it predates it), 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  – note that this series is even mentioned in some PCI Council materials.
In addition, I’d like to draw your attention to a few recent posts from my Gartner blog [which, BTW, now has more than 7X of the traffic of this blog]: 

Critical reference posts:
Current research on SIEM:
Current research on SOC:
Recent research on testing security:
Recent research on threat detection “starter kit”
Miscellaneous fun posts:

(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, 2016, 2017.

Disclaimer: most content at SecurityWarrior blog was written before I joined Gartner on August 1, 2011 and is solely my personal view at the time of writing. For my current security blogging, go here.

Other posts in this endless series:

Friday, June 01, 2018

Monthly Blog Round-Up – May 2018

Here is my next monthly "Security Warrior" blog round-up of top 5 popular posts based on last
month’s visitor data  (excluding other monthly or annual round-ups):
  1. “New SIEM Whitepaper on Use Cases In-Depth OUT!” (dated 2010 – much ancient!) 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 research on developing security monitoring use cases here – and that we UPDATED FOR 2018.
  2. Why No Open Source SIEM, EVER?” contains some of my SIEM thinking from 2009 (oh, wow, ancient history!). 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” … 
  3. Simple Log Review Checklist Released!” is often at the top of this list – this rapidly aging checklist is still a useful tool for many people. “On Free Log Management Tools” (also aged quite a bit by now) is a companion to the checklist (updated version)
  4. Updated With Community Feedback SANS Top 7 Essential Log Reports DRAFT2” is about top log reports project of 2008-2013, I think these are still very useful in response to “what reports will give me the best insight from my logs?”
  5. Again, my classic PCI DSS Log Review series is extra popular! The series of 18 posts cover a comprehensive log review approach (OK for PCI DSS 3+ even though it predates it), 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  – note that this series is even mentioned in some PCI Council materials.
In addition, I’d like to draw your attention to a few recent posts from my Gartner blog [which, BTW, now has more than 7X of the traffic of this blog]: 

Critical reference posts:
Current research on SIEM, SOC, etc

Just finished research on testing security:
Just finished research on threat detection “starter kit”
Miscellaneous fun posts:

(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, 2016, 2017.

Disclaimer: most content at SecurityWarrior blog was written before I joined Gartner on August 1, 2011 and is solely my personal view at the time of writing. For my current security blogging, go here.

Other posts in this endless series:

Tuesday, May 01, 2018

Monthly Blog Round-Up – April 2018

Here is my next monthly "Security Warrior" blog round-up of top 5 popular posts based on last
month’s visitor data  (excluding other monthly or annual round-ups):
  1. “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 research on developing security monitoring use cases here – and we just UPDATED IT FOR 2018.
  2. Simple Log Review Checklist Released!” is often at the top of this list – this rapidly aging checklist is still a useful tool for many people. “On Free Log Management Tools” (also aged quite a bit by now) is a companion to the checklist (updated version)
  3. Updated With Community Feedback SANS Top 7 Essential Log Reports DRAFT2” is about top log reports project of 2008-2013, I think these are still very useful in response to “what reports will give me the best insight from my logs?”
  4. Again, my classic PCI DSS Log Review series is extra popular! The series of 18 posts cover a comprehensive log review approach (OK for PCI DSS 3+ even though it predates it), 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  – note that this series is even mentioned in some PCI Council materials. 
  5. Why No Open Source SIEM, EVER?” contains some of my SIEM thinking from 2009 (oh, wow, ancient history!). 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” … 
In addition, I’d like to draw your attention to a few recent posts from my Gartner blog [which, BTW, now has more than 7X of the traffic of this blog]: 

Critical reference posts:
Current research on testing security:
Current research on threat detection “starter kit”
Just finished research on SOAR:
Miscellaneous fun posts:

(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, 2016, 2017.

Disclaimer: most content at SecurityWarrior blog was written before I joined Gartner on August 1, 2011 and is solely my personal view at the time of writing. For my current security blogging, go here.

Other posts in this endless series:

Thursday, March 01, 2018

Monthly Blog Round-Up – February 2018

It is mildly shocking that I’ve been blogging for 13+ years (my first blog post on this blog was in December 2005, my old blog at O’Reilly predates this by about a year), so let’s spend a moment contemplating this fact.

<contemplative pause here :-)>

Here is my next monthly "Security Warrior" blog round-up of top 5 popular posts based on last
month’s visitor data  (excluding other monthly or annual round-ups):
  1. “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 developing security monitoring use cases here – and we just UPDATED IT FOR 2018.
  2. Updated With Community Feedback SANS Top 7 Essential Log Reports DRAFT2” is about top log reports project of 2008-2013, I think these are still very useful in response to “what reports will give me the best insight from my logs?”
  3. Why No Open Source SIEM, EVER?” contains some of my SIEM thinking from 2009 (oh, wow, ancient history!). 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” … 
  4. Again, my classic PCI DSS Log Review series is extra popular! The series of 18 posts cover a comprehensive log review approach (OK for PCI DSS 3+ even though it predates it), 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  – note that this series is even mentioned in some PCI Council materials. 
  5. Simple Log Review Checklist Released!” is often at the top of this list – this rapidly aging checklist is still a useful tool for many people. “On Free Log Management Tools” (also aged quite a bit by now) is a companion to the checklist (updated version)
In addition, I’d like to draw your attention to a few recent posts from my Gartner blog [which, BTW, now has more than 5X of the traffic of this blog]: 

Critical reference posts:
Current research on testing security:
Current research on threat detection “starter kit”
Just finished research on SOAR:
Miscellaneous fun posts:

(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, 2016, 2017.

Disclaimer: most content at SecurityWarrior blog was written before I joined Gartner on August 1, 2011 and is solely my personal view at the time of writing. For my current security blogging, go here.

Other posts in this endless series:

Thursday, February 01, 2018

Monthly Blog Round-Up – January 2018

Here is my next monthly "Security Warrior" blog round-up of top 5 popular posts based on last
month’s visitor data  (excluding other monthly or annual round-ups):
  1. “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 developing security monitoring use cases here – and we just UPDATED IT FOR 2018.
  2. Why No Open Source SIEM, EVER?” contains some of my SIEM thinking from 2009 (oh, wow, ancient history!). 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” … 
  3. Again, my classic PCI DSS Log Review series is extra popular! The series of 18 posts cover a comprehensive log review approach (OK for PCI DSS 3+ even though it predates it), 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  – note that this series is even mentioned in some PCI Council materials. 
  4. Simple Log Review Checklist Released!” is often at the top of this list – this rapildy aging checklist is still a useful tool for many people. “On Free Log Management Tools” (also aged quite a bit by now) is a companion to the checklist (updated version) s
  5. Updated With Community Feedback SANS Top 7 Essential Log Reports DRAFT2” is about top log reports project of 2008-2013, I think these are still very useful in response to “what reports will give me the best insight from my logs?”
In addition, I’d like to draw your attention to a few recent posts from my Gartner blog [which, BTW, now has more than 5X of the traffic of this blog]: 

A critical reference post:
Current research on testing security:
Current research on threat detection “starter kit”
Current research on SOAR:
Miscellaneous fun posts:

(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, 2016, 2017.

Disclaimer: most content at SecurityWarrior blog was written before I joined Gartner on August 1, 2011 and is solely my personal view at the time of writing. For my current security blogging, go here.

Other posts in this endless series:

Wednesday, January 03, 2018

Annual Blog Round-Up – 2017

Here is my annual "Security Warrior" blog round-up of top 10 popular posts in 2017. Note that my current Gartner blog is where you go for my recent blogging (example), all of the content below predates 2011!

  1. “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 developing security monitoring use cases here!
  2. 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.
  3. Simple Log Review Checklist Released!” is often at the top of this list – the checklist is still a very useful tool for many people. “On Free Log Management Tools” is a companion to the checklist (updated version
  4. My classic PCI DSS Log Review series is always hot! The series of 18 posts cover a comprehensive log review approach (OK for PCI DSS 3+ in 2017 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!
  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 (a lot more details on this here in this paper). 
  6. “SIEM Bloggables”  is a very old post, more like a mini-paper on  some key aspects of SIEM, use cases, scenarios, etc as well as 2 types of SIEM users. Still very relevant, if not truly modern.
  7. Top 10 Criteria for a SIEM?” came from one of my last projects I did when running my SIEM consulting firm in 2009-2011 (for my recent work on evaluating SIEM tools, see this document
  8. Another old checklist, “Log Management Tool Selection Checklist Out!”  holds a top spot  – it can be used to compare log management tools during the tool selection process or even formal RFP process. But let me warn you – this is from 2010.
  9. Updated With Community Feedback SANS Top 7 Essential Log Reports DRAFT2” is about top log reports project of 2008-2013.
  10. “A Myth of An Expert Generalist” is a fun rant on what I think it means to be “a security expert” today; it argues that you must specialize within security to really be called an expert.

Total pageviews: 33,231 in 2017.

Disclaimer: all this content was written before I joined Gartner on August 1, 2011 and is solely my personal view at the time of writing.  For my current security blogging, go here.

Also see my past monthly and annual “Top Posts” – 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.

Dr Anton Chuvakin