Ayoi on the Importance of NSM Data

At my ShmooCon talk I provided a series of case studies showing the importance of Network Security Monitoring data. The idea was to ask how it would be possible to determine if an IDS alert represented a real problem if high-quality data didn't exist. Alert management is not security investigation, and unfortunately most products and processes implement the former while the latter is truly needed.

I noticed that Ayoi in Malaysia posted a series of blog stories showing his investigative methodology using NSM data and Sguil (Not Only Alert Data parts I, II, and III). These posts demonstrate several alerts and compare data available via an alert management tool like BASE versus a security investigation tool like Sguil. I am glad to see these sorts of stories because they show how people in the trenches do their jobs.

I have yet to meet an analyst -- someone responsible for finding intrusions -- who rejects my methods or the need for collecting NSM data. Almost everyone who argues against these methods is not directly responsible for the technical aspects of personally detecting and responding to intrusions.