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Best Log Management Tools for Security Auditing

By December 3, 2018November 9th, 2019No Comments5 min read
security-audit

 Network security has become the top priority for any organization. Network engineers have to constantly monitor and maintain the IT infrastructure to secure its reliability. Security management is one of the 5 areas of Network management defined by ISO standardization. To secure your network, you need to audit the network resources and find anomalies in their usage by analyzing the log files.

Server, router, sensor, system software, and any other device that is connected to a network produces log files. In the computing context, a log is an automatically produced and time-stamped documentation of events related to a system. But with the number of devices connected to a business network increasing exponentially, it becomes difficult for traditional software to audit logs. To overcome this issue, the latest innovations in log management which include big data technology can help you to manage the log files and secure your network efficiently.

In addition to securing a network, log management tools also help in compliance regulations. Compliances like PCI and HIPAA require you to audit logs and report security breaches to protect consumers personal information that is used by an organization. Log management tools facilitate the generation, transmission, and analysis of the large volumes of log data created within an IT ecosystem.

Best Log Management Tools:

We have compiled a list of best log management tools that will help you in storing, analyzing and transmitting log data. Some of these tools also allow you to combine the data parsing power with more meaningful application data like SIEM. With the following information, you can select the right software solution that suits your budget and IT infrastructure. For more details about the subscription plans, please visit their individual website.

SPLUNK (https://www.splunk.com/)

Splunk is an industry-leading software that can manage structured, unstructured and complex multi-line application logs. It comes with a built-in search and visualization tools making it a must-have tool for security. The Enterprise version is a network management system in itself rather than just a log file organizer.  Splunk is also available for the cloud with easy deployment and management for security and system reliability.

Price:

  • Enterprise: $225/GB/month
  • Cloud: Price on demand
  • Splunk Free: Free to use with 500MB data/day

 LOGPACKER (https://logpacker.com/)

LogPacker gives you a fast and easy installation service.  A LogPacker agent can be installed onto Unix, Windows, Android, iOS, and also on a website’s JavaScript. It makes grouping and data aggregation easy for sending it to a server cluster. With LogPacker, your network and servers can handle any load. It has a built-in support for more than 100 log sources.

Price:

  • Pro is available at $99/1TB/Month with 90 days retention
  • Startup is available for $10/100GB/Month with 30 days retention
  • Lite version is Free with 10GB / month with 7 days Retention

SUMOLOGIC (https://www.sumologic.com/)

SumoLogic is primarily a SaaS cloud-based tool. It comes with advanced analytics and machine learning for forensic log management. It simplifies and automate compliance and secures your modern applications with the freedom of expandability with no lockout penalties. It also makes development and deployment of applications easy and fast. The only downside of SumoLogic is that it does not offer extensive features for on-premise devices.

Price:

  • Enterprise comes at $180 / GB per Day Monthly Price, Billed Annually
  • Professional $108 / GB per Day Monthly Price, Billed Annually
  • Sumo Free is available for free with limited storage

PAPERTRAIL (https://www.papertrail.io/)

PaperTrail is a simple and straightforward tool without lots of huss and fuss. It provides an easy to use interface, that looks like a command prompt, to search through logs from multiple machines. It is a cloud-based service which will run on any operating system, using your web browser. You can easily integrate PaperTrail with Slack, Email, and Librato to get real-time notifications.

Price:

  • Essential plan with $7/month
  • Business plan $ 26/ user/ month
  • Corporate plan on contact basis

ELASTIC (https://www.elastic.co/)

Elastic suit is made up of many open source tools for application data analysis and visualization. Its Logstash tool is designed for the collection and management of log files. It can be combined with ElasticSearch for indexing and searching through data and Kibana for charting and visualizing data. It is ideal for those who are looking for a free to use but highly effective tool for log management. But you will have to manage each tool individually.

Price: Every tool in Elastic suit is Free to use

LOGRHYTHM (https://logrhythm.com/)

LogRhythm combines log management and event management processes making it a complete SIEM solution (Security Information and Event Management). It provides intelligent real-time search, supports over 700 log sources and easy and fast correlation to identify patterns in security data.

Price:

Pricing is available as per your requirements for which you need to contact them at https://logrhythm.com/pricing-and-licensing-info-request/

Conclusion:

Log data provides a definitive record of what’s happening in every business.  But visiting each log file is tedious and inefficient for larger systems. Log management tools make the work of a network engineer easy and fast. You can either go for a free solution or invest some money to get advanced analytics. But ultimately, your log management tool will reduce your workload, increase your productivity and give you the best return on investment.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™  services and solutions in how we can help your business.