The Evolution of SIEM Software

SIEM solutions have been around for over 15 years, but today’s modern
SIEMs have evolved from their original counterparts. Mark Nicolett and Amrit
Williams established the term “SIEM” in a 2005 Gartner research
report, Improve IT Security With Vulnerability Management. [1] These legacy
SIEMs were a combination of integrated security methods into one
management solution, including:

 Log management systems (LMS): Processes for simple collection and

centralized storage of logs.
 Security information management (SIM): Tools for automated
collection of log files for long-term storage, analysis, and reporting on
log data.
 Security event management (SEM): Technology for real-time
monitoring and correlating of systems and events with notification and
console views.

As SIEM software transformed over time, the core components continue to

provide value, but innovative technology within the competitive landscape
paved the way for more comprehensive and advanced approaches to
reducing risk in an organization. This led SIEM providers to eventually launch
new features that have termed these enhanced products as “next-generation
SIEM” solutions.