Security information management (SIM) is an
information security
Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data ...
industry term for the collection of data such as
log files into a central repository for trend analysis.
Overview
SIM products generally are software agents running on the computer systems that are monitored. The recorded log information is then sent to a centralized server that acts as a "security console". The console typically displays reports, charts, and graphs of that information, often in real time. Some software agents can incorporate local filters to reduce and manipulate the data that they send to the server, although typically from a forensic point of view you would collect all audit and accounting logs to ensure you can recreate a security incident.
The security console is monitored by an administrator who reviews the consolidated information and takes action in response to any alerts issued.
The data that is sent to the server to be correlated and analyzed are normalized by the software agents into a common form, usually
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
. Those data are then aggregated in order to reduce their overall size.
Terminology
The terminology can easily be mistaken as a reference to the whole aspect of protecting one's infrastructure from any computer security breach. Due to historic reasons of terminology evolution; SIM refers to just the part of information security which consists of discovery of 'bad behavior' or policy violations by using data collection techniques. The term commonly used to represent an entire security infrastructure that protects an environment is commonly called
information security management (InfoSec).
Security information management is also referred to as log management and is different from SEM (
security event management), but makes up a portion of a
SIEM Security information and event management (SIEM) is a field within computer security that combines security information management (SIM) and security event management (SEM) to enable real-time analysis of security alerts generated by applications an ...
(security information and event management) solution.
[http://www.siem.su/ SIEM Analytics (in Russian)]
See also
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Information security
Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data ...
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Information security management
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Information security management system
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Security Information and Event Management Security information and event management (SIEM) is a field within computer security that combines security information management (SIM) and security event management (SEM) to enable real-time analysis of security alerts generated by applications an ...
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Security event manager Security event management (SEM), and the related Security information management, SIM and SIEM, are computer security disciplines that use data inspection tools to centralize the storage and interpretation of logs or events generated by other softwa ...
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Gordon–Loeb model for cyber security investments
References
Computer security
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