Globally, over 72% of all organizations get exposed to a cyberattack. Adding to this fear, costs incurred due to global cyber threats are predicted to hit $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, pinpointing the necessity for stringent cybersecurity measures. As AI landscape is expanding, so is the threat landscape where cybercriminals are leveraging artificial intelligence to launch highly advanced and calculated threats. Organizations must invest in AI driven cybersecurity to reassess and revamp their existing security systems. This includes modernizing their security posture with an AI SIEM solution. Building a security posture with Microsoft Sentinel will strengthen the first line of defense that keeps businesses protected from existing and future security threats.
This blog will explore the strategies and tools organizations can use for designing a robust and efficient security posture with Microsoft Sentinel. Keep reading.
|
How much does it cost to Implement Microsoft Sentinel? Read the blog |
What Qualifies Microsoft Sentinel as the Perfect SIEM Solution?
Data Aggregation
The first step is to gather data from multiple sources. Microsoft Sentinel is empowered with more than 100 data connectors that enable businesses to ingest data quickly. Furthermore, it provides connectors to AWS, GCP, and on-prem systems.
Dashboards
The ingested data is stored in Log Analytics. Kusto Query Language is used for querying data with 100 workbooks present out of box. This helps in creating dashboards and data visualizations.
Alerts
Scheduling workbooks helps in defining actions that should be taken if an anomaly is detected. After a query is enabled and a potential security gap is identified, an alert gets triggered instantly. Alerts can be sent via teams, mail, or by creating an item on a project management tool.
Intelligent Correlation
Sentinel is a powerful SIEM solution that gathers and correlates data sets from multiple network and security systems. This equips security teams with accurate threat intelligence to detect a potential multi-stage attack. The platform also knows how to prioritize a suspicious activity based on the severity of the potential security attack.
Retention
One of the features of a SIEM platform is to store security logs for a longer period and act as a single point of contact for compliance. Microsoft Sentinel Solutions stores data for two years, matching the retention period of average industry standards.
Forensic Analysis
The last step of any SIEM solution is to thoroughly evaluate a security incident. It investigates the root cause of the attack, followed by studying the entry points, understanding the nature of the attack, and assessing the scope of the damage.
Microsoft Copilot
Leveraging a generative AI solution such as Microsoft Copilot streamlines end-to-end security management including threat hunting, threat intelligence, incident response, and posture management.
|
Want to crack the step-by-step process of implementing Microsoft Sentinel? Read the blog |
Step-by-step Process into Developing an Intelligent Security Posture with Microsoft Sentinel
Gather data through data connectors
For on-boarding Microsoft Sentinel and initiating action, organizations need to integrate their data sources.
Microsoft Sentinel comes with in-built connectors for Microsoft solutions that offer real-time integration. These connectors include:
- Microsoft Entra ID, Azure Key Vault, Azure Key Storage, Azure Kubernetes, Azure Activity
- Office 365, Microsoft Defender XDR and for IoT, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
It also offers connectors to applications and security systems for non-Microsoft solutions. Security teams can either use a common format or Syslog, REST-API to integrate data sources with Microsoft Sentinel.
Build interactive reports through workbooks
The next step involves monitoring data through integration with Azure monitor workbooks. Microsoft Sentinel security services lets organizations build custom workbooks for the ingested data. Alternatively, they can use Sentinel’s workbook templates to gain insights from the data after connecting to the data source.
Correlate alerts into incidents through analytics
By deploying analytics, Microsoft Sentinel correlates multiple alerts into incidents. Meaning, it clubs related alerts to form a security incident, signifying a potential threat that security terms can identify and remediate. Sentinel comes with ML capabilities to scan the entire network infrastructure for any anomalies. If discovered, analytics group low-fidelity threats into high-fidelity security incidents.
Automate and orchestrate using playbooks
Integrate playbooks with other Azure solutions and tools to streamline security orchestration and automate basic security tasks. Microsoft Sentinel’s SOAR solutions help to scale automation when new threats or breaches arise. For creating playbooks with Azure Logic Apps, there are many connectors to choose from namely:
- Zendesk
- HTTP requests
- Microsoft Teams
- Jira
- Zendesk
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps
|
Traditional SOC vs Modern SOC: Which one is better? Read the blog |
Investigate the root cause of security attacks
Providing access to deep investigation tools enables security teams to identify the root cause of a security threat or an attack. They can either select a specific entity on the interactive graph or drill down into the entity to gather more in-depth information about the attack.
Hunt security threats using built-in queries
Based on MITRE Framework, deploying Sentinel’s robust hunting search-and-query tools can hunt for threats across data and network systems quickly and accurately. Even before an alert gets triggered. Build detection rules to accelerate threat hunting and feed the gathered insights as alerts into security responders.
Enhance your threat hunting with Custom Machine Learning
Microsoft Sentinel supports Jupyter notebooks in Azure Machine Learning workspaces, including full libraries for machine learning, visualization, and data analysis.
Taking threat hunting one step forward, Microsoft Sentinel can integrate Jupyter notebooks into its Azure ML workspace, containing libraries for ML, data analysis and visualization. Increasing the scope for advanced detection, Juptyer notebooks:
- Offers a true scripting and programming environment for accessing and integrating external data.
- Supports and guides analysts by providing a collection of libraries for machine learning, visualization, and data analysis.
- Analyzes security events with a dynamic, flexible, and language-agnostic approach.
Explore and Implement Best Practices with Community Help
The Microsoft Sentinel Community serves as a sophisticated repository of threat hunting and automation. Each year, Microsoft’s security experts develop and add new playbooks, workbooks, and hunting queries into the community. Additionally, they piece together content materials, guidebooks, and handbooks for managing and enhancing security infra with Sentinel.
|
Why Do you Need Managed Services for Implementing Microsoft Sentinel? Read the blog |
Elevate your Security Posture with Cloud4C
Cloud4C, cloud managed services company, comes with a decade of expertise in deploying and managing Microsoft Sentinel (formerly branded as Azure Sentinel) capabilities to make organizations security ready. Building next-gen security solutions for Fortune 500s, our experts help organizations to realize the true value of Sentinel. We create a tailored roadmap to address your company’s specific security needs and suggest recommendations to improve their security infra. As an Azure Expert MSP and Microsoft Gold Partner with 10+ advanced specializations, we have developed a robust security framework that provides recommendations and strategies to implement Microsoft Sentinel in a cost-effective and sustainable manner.
Are you ready to take charge of your security transformation journey with Microsoft Sentinel? Get in touch with our representative today!
