A Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system is a security tool that provides an overview of an enterprise’s infrastructure. SIEMs are used by enterprises to demonstrate their compliance and protect sensitive information. A ticketing system is a one-to-one solution used to log reports of abuse. Because of their fundamental limitations, neither of these systems should be used to enhance your Service Provider’s network security or handle abuse.

SIEM: Ideal For Enterprise Security

SIEM works in situations when an enterprise is spread out across multiple locations and needs a centralized, bird’s-eye view of all their data to spot abnormal patterns or events. SIEMs are often implemented in response to governmental compliance requirements and are ideal in situations where compliance obligations, policy enforcement validation, and maintaining safety and security certifications are a priority.

Because a SIEM is implemented by a business, the personal nature of the data does not come into question. All the data is owned by the enterprise and can be scrutinized or ‘sniffed’ by the SIEM without any privacy laws being violated.

See also: The Importance of Network Security In Any Organization

Where SIEM Does Not Work

Unlike enterprises, service providers are home to a wide variety of customers, each with highly sensitive and personal data. Service providers’ clients would not respond favorably to a centralized security system that analyzes and sniffs their data for security abuse or infringements. Instead, service providers need a way of ensuring network security and preventing abuse that does not compromise their customers’ data or traffic.

Ticketing Systems: Unable To Cope With Large Volumes Of Abuse

A Service Provider’s abuse team is inundated daily with thousands of abuse reports. A ticketing system that documents abuse on a one-to-one basis is simply unable to provide the real-time analytics needed to identify the sources of abuse. With a ticketing system, a team could work their way through 50 reports before realizing they all relate to the same DDoS attack. All this time could have been saved if a system was in a place that was able to analyze the abuse reports, connect the dots, and identify the single source of abuse.

How To Improve Your Network Security

Instead of handling abuse reports on a one-to-one basis, you need a system that handles data flow and processes incoming reports as soon as possible. All data should be in a machine-parsable format such as X-Arf. In an IP Abuse Report, abuse categories need to be evaluated and prioritized based on the magnitude and cost of each type of abuse for your service provider. It’s important to identify the issues that are most important and most pressing. Real-time analytics should be in place, so instead of using five people to deal with thousands of reports, you can use automated proactive tools to whittle them down to create an IP Abuse Report that establishes common abuse issues.

See also: The Ins and Outs of Network Security

AbuseHQ from Abusix integrates into existing infrastructures to provide the insight necessary to improve network security by identifying network abuse at its source. Instead of a constant flow of noisy incident messages streaming into your ticketing system, AbuseHQ can place a well-attributed case into your ticketing system triggered by a transition. Then either a webhook or email integration with our ticketing system can push the information upstream. As a result, your team ends up with fewer tickets, clearer tickets, and improved actionability. AbuseHQ’s functionality features include:

• All network abuse statuses are presented in real-time, filtered by various time periods.
• Network reporting and customer search functionality automatically correlate and clusters events with real-time filtering and sorting.
• Your abuse team can view the network using 11 parameters, 14 filters, and hundreds of other one-click sub-filters.
• It is also possible to view an individual customer’s IP resource usage and 31 different types of abuse event details in real-time.
• A mailbox-like feature also provides an overall view of all messages and reports that AbuseHQ has received.

To find out more about how AbuseHQ can help your abuse desk perform at their best, download The Ultimate Guide To Abuse Desk Setup, here.