As security teams rethink how they handle incident triage and look to adopt powerful artificial intelligence tools for their SOC in 2024, many are considering if it’s time to make the switch to a “next-generation” SIEM solution for log management, such as CrowdStrike Falcon LogScale. In this guide, I want to give you an introduction to CrowdStrike’s next-generation SIEM, some advantages and disadvantages compared to other leading SIEM tools, and how to make migrating to a new log management tool easier on your SOC team.
What is Falcon LogScale?
Falcon LogScale, a product by CrowdStrike, is a next-generation SIEM and log management solution designed for real-time threat detection, rapid search capabilities, and efficient data retention. It stands out for its ability to manage petabyte-scale data with ease, ensuring cost-effective operations for businesses of all sizes.
The release of Falcon LogScale is a result of CrowdStrike’s acquisition of Humio for $400 million in 2022, integrating Humio’s log management and data analytics capabilities natively into the CrowdStrike platform.
Falcon LogScale vs. Other SIEMs
Falcon Logscale Advantages Compared To Other SIEMs
- Real-time Detections and Fast Search: Falcon LogScale boasts real-time detections, enabling rapid threat mitigation, and provides blazing-fast search capabilities to significantly reduce the time taken to return query results, even at petabyte scale.
- Cost-Effective Data Retention: It offers cost-effective solutions for data retention, potentially saving millions in infrastructure and licensing costs, thereby addressing the high costs often associated with legacy SIEM solutions.
- Index-Free, High-Speed Data Ingestion and Search: By using an index-free architecture, Falcon LogScale can handle high-volume data ingestion and search activities with minimal latency, supporting over 1 petabyte of data ingestion per day.
- Extensibility and Integration: Falcon LogScale provides an extensible query language, customizable dashboards, and a powerful observability pipeline named CrowdStream for easy data connection and routing, enhancing its adaptability to various data sources and user needs.
- Simplified User Experience: Designed with an intuitive interface and easy-to-learn search language, LogScale enables users to quickly create searches, dashboards, and alerts, facilitating a quicker time-to-value.
- Seamless integration with CrowdStrike Products: Falcon LogScale integrates effortlessly with the CrowdStrike Falcon platform, enhancing security and simplifying workflows.
Falcon LogScale Disadvantages Compared To Other SIEMs
- Limited built-in integrations: While Falcon LogScale provides a range of built-in integrations, as listed on the CrowdStrike Marketplace, the number of these integrations is smaller compared to other leading SIEM solutions. However, this is expected to expand in the future.
- More development work for custom sources: Due to the limited number of built-in integrations, organizations need to invest in developing capabilities like parsing, normalizing, and securely transporting logs for systems. This requirement can increase the development workload, particularly for teams lacking specific resources or expertise.
- Alert engine and user interface: Compared to competitors like Elastic and Splunk, according to a few users, Falcon Logscale’s alert engine lacks the ability to create complex rules that trigger actions beyond simple notifications. Additionally, its user interface and overall user experience have not seen the level of innovation and refinement present in other CrowdStrike products or those of its competitors, making it less intuitive for users transitioning from other platforms.
- Industry familiarity and hiring: As a newer SIEM solution, Falcon LogScale isn’t as well-known among security engineers and analysts as more established tools. This can lead to a learning curve for teams new to Falcon LogScale and may make hiring experienced talent more challenging compared to more recognized SIEM platforms.
Falcon LogScale vs Splunk SIEM
LogScale excels in speed, simplicity, and cost-efficiency, and it seamlessly integrates with the CrowdStrike platform. In contrast, Splunk Enterprise Security, one of the most popular SIEMs, leads with its extensive built-in integrations and advanced detection and rule capabilities. Falcon LogScale is great for teams eager to customize within the CrowdStrike ecosystem, while Splunk is ideal for organizations desiring comprehensive integrations and advanced alerting features.
How To Migrate To Falcon LogScale?
Migrating to Falcon LogScale involves a thoughtful process that starts with understanding your current data sources:
- Assess Data Sources: Begin by assessing and understanding the data sources your organization uses. Identify which ones have built-in integrations available in the Falcon LogScale marketplace and which will require custom development.
- Leverage Quick Wins: Start by integrating data sources with existing marketplace integrations. This approach provides immediate benefits and helps establish a foundation in Falcon LogScale.
- Prioritize Custom Ingestion: For data sources without direct integrations, prioritize custom development. Ensure that data is not only ingested but also correctly parsed and integrated within Falcon LogScale.
- Migrate Detections: Convert your existing detections to Falcon LogScale’s format. This transition period is an excellent opportunity to refine and tune your detections for better accuracy and efficiency.
- Configure Notifications: Set up notifications to ensure that the right teams are alerted promptly, whether through ticketing systems, case management platforms, SOAR, or simpler methods like email or Slack.
- Testing and Finalizing: Conduct parallel monitoring with your current SIEM and Falcon LogScale to compare findings. Address any discrepancies or issues to ensure that Falcon LogScale is fully capturing and analyzing your security data.
- Complete the Migration: Once you’re confident in Falcon LogScale’s performance and have addressed all critical issues, finalize the migration by fully transitioning to Falcon LogScale.
This structured approach ensures a smooth transition to Falcon LogScale, allowing you to leverage its speed, efficiency, and integration capabilities to enhance your security posture.
About the AI-Powered Autonomous SOC Platform
Intezer’s Autonomous SOC solution addresses the cybersecurity talent gap by offering AI-powered analysis and response capabilities. It acts as an extension of your team, providing 24/7 monitoring of your security alerts (yes, including Falcon LogScale and other CrowdStrike products), deeply investigating each alert and escalating only 4% of alerts on average for your team’s attention.
How Intezer Can Make Your SIEM Migration Easier
– Automated Alert Triage: Intezer’s strength lies in its ability to automatically discern between genuine threats and false positives. This AI-powered capability is crucial during the initial phases of migrating to a new SIEM like Falcon LogScale, where the system is still learning to differentiate between benign and malicious activities. By reducing the number of false positives, Intezer allows security teams to focus on true threats, ensuring a smoother and more efficient transition process.
– Vendor-Agnostic Platform: One of the standout features of Intezer is its vendor-neutral approach to security analysis and response. Regardless of the SIEM solution in use — be it Falcon LogScale, Splunk, or any other — Intezer ensures that the format and quality of analysis remain consistent. This interoperability is particularly beneficial during a migration phase, as it provides a layer of stability and familiarity amidst the change, significantly easing the adaptation process for security teams.
– Continuous Tuning Recommendations: Intezer doesn’t just facilitate the initial migration; it plays an ongoing role in enhancing the SIEM environment. Through continuous monitoring and AI-powered analysis, Intezer identifies areas for improvement and provides actionable recommendations for tuning the SIEM configuration. This proactive approach ensures that your Falcon LogScale deployment is always optimized for the evolving threat landscape, enabling you to derive the maximum benefit from your SIEM investment over time.
By addressing these key aspects of the migration process, Intezer not only simplifies the transition to Falcon LogScale but also enhances the overall efficacy and efficiency of the security operations center (SOC) post-migration.
Building Your AI-Powered SOC Team
Migrating to Falcon LogScale with Intezer’s assistance can streamline your transition, enhancing your security operations with cutting-edge AI technology. Intezer’s Autonomous SOC solution complements Falcon LogScale by offering deep analysis and automated responses, ensuring a robust defense against cyber threats. For those considering the switch, leveraging these tools together can provide a seamless, efficient, and powerful security infrastructure for your team.
Book a demo today to see how Intezer can transform your security operations.
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