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Augmenting security event information with contextual data to improve the detection capabilities of a SIEM

The increasing number of cyber security breaches have revealed a need for proper cyber security measures. The emergence of the internet and the increase in overall connectivity means that data is more easily accessible and available. Using the available data in a security context may provide a syste...

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Main Author: Bissict, Jason
Other Authors: Hutchison, Andrew
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Computer Science 2017
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access_status_str Open Access
author Bissict, Jason
author2 Hutchison, Andrew
author_browse Bissict, Jason
Hutchison, Andrew
author_facet Hutchison, Andrew
Bissict, Jason
author_sort Bissict, Jason
collection Thesis
description The increasing number of cyber security breaches have revealed a need for proper cyber security measures. The emergence of the internet and the increase in overall connectivity means that data is more easily accessible and available. Using the available data in a security context may provide a system with an external contextual insight such as environmental awareness or current affair awareness. A security information and event management (SIEM) system is a security system that correlates security event information from surrounding systems and decides whether the surrounding environment (possibly an enterprise's network) is vulnerable or even under attack by a malicious person whether they be internal (authorised) or external (unauthorised). In this thesis, the aim is to provide such a system with con- text by adding non-security related information from surrounding available sources known as context information feeds. Contextual information feeds are added to the SIEM and tested using randomised events. There are various context information types used in this thesis, namely: social media, meteorological, calendar information and terror threat level. The SIEM is tested with each contextual data feed active and the results are recorded. The testing shows that the addition of contextual data feeds actively affects the sensitivity of OSSIM and hence results in higher alarms raised during elevated context triggered states. The system showed a greater and deeper visibility of its surrounding environment and hence an improved detection capability.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:05.102Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2017
publishDateRange 2017
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publisher Department of Computer Science
publisherStr Department of Computer Science
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/25207 Augmenting security event information with contextual data to improve the detection capabilities of a SIEM Bissict, Jason Hutchison, Andrew Computer Science The increasing number of cyber security breaches have revealed a need for proper cyber security measures. The emergence of the internet and the increase in overall connectivity means that data is more easily accessible and available. Using the available data in a security context may provide a system with an external contextual insight such as environmental awareness or current affair awareness. A security information and event management (SIEM) system is a security system that correlates security event information from surrounding systems and decides whether the surrounding environment (possibly an enterprise's network) is vulnerable or even under attack by a malicious person whether they be internal (authorised) or external (unauthorised). In this thesis, the aim is to provide such a system with con- text by adding non-security related information from surrounding available sources known as context information feeds. Contextual information feeds are added to the SIEM and tested using randomised events. There are various context information types used in this thesis, namely: social media, meteorological, calendar information and terror threat level. The SIEM is tested with each contextual data feed active and the results are recorded. The testing shows that the addition of contextual data feeds actively affects the sensitivity of OSSIM and hence results in higher alarms raised during elevated context triggered states. The system showed a greater and deeper visibility of its surrounding environment and hence an improved detection capability. 2017-09-14T12:28:47Z 2017-09-14T12:28:47Z 2017 Master Thesis Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25207 eng application/pdf Department of Computer Science Faculty of Science University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Computer Science
Bissict, Jason
Augmenting security event information with contextual data to improve the detection capabilities of a SIEM
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Augmenting security event information with contextual data to improve the detection capabilities of a SIEM
title_full Augmenting security event information with contextual data to improve the detection capabilities of a SIEM
title_fullStr Augmenting security event information with contextual data to improve the detection capabilities of a SIEM
title_full_unstemmed Augmenting security event information with contextual data to improve the detection capabilities of a SIEM
title_short Augmenting security event information with contextual data to improve the detection capabilities of a SIEM
title_sort augmenting security event information with contextual data to improve the detection capabilities of a siem
topic Computer Science
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25207
work_keys_str_mv AT bissictjason augmentingsecurityeventinformationwithcontextualdatatoimprovethedetectioncapabilitiesofasiem