In the day-to-day operations of companies, everything is interconnected: systems, applications, cloud services, and users accessing resources from different locations around the world. As a result, every click, login, and integration generates information that helps us understand the state of the infrastructure.
In theory, this data should make it easier to understand what is working well and what needs attention. In practice, however, it becomes a growing challenge: logs, alerts, and notifications coming from multiple sources, in different formats, and in volumes that exceed human capacity for analysis.
As a result, it is not uncommon to see teams switching between multiple tools and trying to connect dots that, on their own, say very little but, when combined, can reveal the early signs of a threat. And it is precisely in this scenario that SIEM emerges as a powerful ally.
Want to learn more about the topic? In this article, you will understand what SIEM is, how it works, and the impact it has on the security strategy of many organizations. Enjoy the read!
Learn more about the following topics:
- What is SIEM and why is it important?
- How does security information and event management work?
- What are the main benefits of a SIEM system?
What is SIEM and why is it important?
As corporate environments become more distributed and increasingly dependent on multiple digital integrations, keeping track of what happens in each system becomes a daily challenge. Logs, events, and alerts appear constantly, and without a well-defined organization, it is difficult to identify when something truly deserves attention.
In this context, SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) is a technology that centralizes, correlates, and analyzes security data generated by a company’s infrastructure. It brings together information from servers, applications, firewalls, cloud services, endpoints, and many other components, providing a unified view of the environment.
In general, the concept of SIEM combines two pillars:
- SIM (Security Information Management): responsible for collecting, storing, and organizing logs, enabling queries, audits, and historical analysis.
- SEM (Security Event Management): focused on real-time monitoring, event correlation, alert generation, and the detection of suspicious activities.
By combining SIM and SEM, SIEM creates a system capable of monitoring the environment end to end: from raw data collection to the contextual understanding of potential threats.
How does security information and event management work?
In summary, SIEM acts as the layer within the process that transforms scattered data into actionable information. It organizes records from different systems, analyzes the context of these events, and highlights what may or may not represent a risk.
Next, take a closer look at how it all works:
Security data collection and aggregation
The first step is to gather logs and events from across the entire infrastructure. In other words, servers, firewalls, applications, authentication systems, cloud services, endpoints, and network solutions send their records to the SIEM.
As a result, the tool consolidates this information into a single environment, normalizing formats so everything can be analyzed consistently and making future investigations easier.
Event correlation and intelligent analysis
After collecting the data, SIEM begins to correlate information, looking for relationships that do not usually appear at first glance. Repeated login attempts, unusual access, or unexpected movement between systems can tell a story when viewed together and may indicate a potential threat.
This correlation can follow pre-configured rules or advanced techniques such as behavioral analysis and machine learning. Some common examples include:
- Multiple failed login attempts followed by a successful login at an unusual time;
- Simultaneous access to the same account from different locations;
- Lateral movements between systems with no apparent justification.
Real-time alert generation and dashboards
When a set of events meets the criteria defined by the security team or by the SIEM’s own analysis engine, the tool generates real-time alerts.
These alerts typically appear on centralized dashboards that display the status of the environment, ongoing incidents, trends, and other critical indicators. This way, the team does not need to search for issues manually, as they arrive already organized and ready for analysis.
What are the main benefits of a SIEM system?
In modern companies, the more complex the infrastructure, the larger the attack surface becomes and the harder it is to ensure security, visibility, and compliance. In this context, a SIEM system emerges as a key ally, as it centralizes, simplifies, and automates a large portion of operational security.
Among the main benefits of a SIEM system, we have:
Centralized visibility across the infrastructure
The first practical gain of SIEM is bringing together, in a single environment, data that is usually scattered across different sources: access logs, application logs, network events, endpoint alerts, and information generated by cloud providers. This consolidation reduces noise in monitoring and makes it easier to understand what is happening in real time.
Proactive detection of threats and anomalies
With so many systems operating at the same time, relying solely on manual analysis is not the best approach for your business. SIEM correlates events, identifies unusual patterns, and flags suspicious behaviors such as repeated login attempts, out-of-pattern access, or lateral movements.
This capability makes a significant difference, especially because the time required to identify and contain incidents is still long in many organizations. Studies conducted by UpGuard show that companies without automation take, on average, 321 days to detect and contain a breach, while those using automated security tools and AI reduce this cycle to around 249 days.
Compliance with standards such as LGPD, ISO 27001, and HIPAA
For many companies, maintaining compliance with data security regulations and standards is still a major challenge. For this reason, SIEM helps meet these requirements automatically by consolidating logs and events, preserving historical records, storing evidence, and generating audit-ready reports.
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