Effective Use Case Modeling for Security Information and Event Management

In most compliance frameworks and best practices guides there are references to appropriately auditing events within an information technology infrastructure. This places a great deal of importance on appropriately managing event data. However, in recent SANS Advisory Board and SecurityFocus discussions, it is clear that log management is often times an elusive ideal which is near impossible for most companies to implement for a myriad of reasons. Chief among them is the fact that not many organizations truly understand the methods with which to dissect and utilize logging sources. This paper defines a standard methodology which can be used to develop use cases that can be used to help organizations quantify the scope and need for log management technologies.