What is UEBA?
Hackers now have many ways to break into firewalls, whether by sending you e-mails with infected attachments or bribing an employee. The old tools and systems are quickly becoming obsolete.
User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) helps you make sure that your organization is secure, while also detecting users who might compromise the system.
A Definition of User and Entity Behavior Analytics
UEBA is a type of cyber security process that takes note of the normal conduct of users. For example, if someone regularly downloads 10 MB but suddenly they download gigabytes, it will be able to detect this anomaly and alert them immediately.
UEBA uses machine learning to see when there are deviations from established patterns, which could result in a potential or real threat. UEBA can also aggregate data you have and analyze file information.
UEBA is different from other security programs because it focuses on insider threats. These include rogue employees, compromised employees, and people who have access to your system but carry out targeted attacks or fraud attempts.
Benefits of UEBA
The old days of cyber security involved web gateways, firewalls and intrusion prevention tools. This is no longer the case as hackers are able to bypass these defenses with ease.
Even though you can’t prevent attacks, it’s important to know when they happen and minimize the damage as quickly as possible.
How UEBA Works
The premise of UEBA or ubea is actually very simple. You can easily steal an employee’s password and user name, but it’s much harder to mimic the person’s normal behavior once inside. For example, let’s say you steal Jane Doe’s username and password
You would still not be able to act precisely like Jane Doe once in the system unless given extensive research or preparation time for their specific profile personality
Therefore, when login from another account with different behavioral patterns than typical Jane Doe comes up – that will trigger alerts on UEBA security.
If someone steals your credit card, they can go to a store and spend thousands of dollars without you knowing. If the thief’s spending pattern is different from yours, then fraud detection will often recognize it and block suspicious purchases.
UEBA in cyber security is an important component of IT security, which allows you to do the following prevent unauthorized access to your network.
Sometimes, user accounts are hacked. They may have installed malware on their machine or someone might be spoofing them. UEBA can help you weed out these compromised users before they cause any real problems.
A brute-force attack is when a hacker tries to guess your password by trying many different combinations. UEBA can detect and block these types of attacks, so hackers cannot get into your cloud servers or third-party authentication systems.
UEBA can help identify when a new super user is created, or if someone has been given unnecessary permissions.
You should monitor who is accessing your data and why they are doing so.
User Behavior Analytics
SIEM is a complex set of tools and technologies that give you an accurate view of your IT system. It uses data from various sources to identify patterns or trends, then alerts you when there are anomalies.
One problem with SIEM is that advanced hackers can easily work around or evade these rules. UEBA, on the other hand, doesn’t rely on rules and instead uses risk scoring techniques to detect anomalies over time.
One of the best practices for IT security is to use both SIEM and UEBA because they create a better detection system.
User and Entity Behavior Analysis
UEBA is meant to be used as a supplement, not a replacement for other security systems.
Another great practice is to harness the storage and computational powers of big data, using machine learning and statistical analysis so that these systems automatically filter out irrelevant information for you.
Protect Your Organization from Cybersecurity Threats
SecurityStudio helps information security leaders at organizations ensure they’re protected against cybersecurity threats, stay insurable, and legally defensible with our risk assessment and risk management software. Schedule a demo to learn how we can help.
UEBA is software that uses machine learning and algorithms to identify anomalies in user behavior, which can be indicative of an impending security breach. UEBA strengthens the company’s defenses by monitoring users’ actions more closely.
