Revolutionizing SOC Efficiency: Cribl Observability Pipelines in Cloud-Native SIEM

A comprehensive data pipeline has been and always will be the key to an effective security operations center (SOC). However, the complexity of data migration, storage, and analysis has risen in recent years, Leading to a surge in data influxes that generate a flurry of alerts. These alerts often result in slow, inefficient, and manual investigations. Yes, security teams want a robust data strategy, but what happens when your SOC becomes inundated in alert noise and false positive data? 

In our webinar “Using Cribl Observability Pipelines to Optimize Cloud-Native SIEM,” I am joined by Jim Apger, Senior Alliances Technology Engineer at Cribl, and Desi Gavis-Hughson, Manager of Solutions Marketing at Cribl, to examine the current state of data ingestion and the transformational potential of combining Cribl observability pipelines with cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM).

In this article:

• The challenge of data growth
• Reducing SIEM spend
• Improving the joint customer experience

The challenge of data growth

Whether threats originate from within or outside an organization, security teams need increased visibility. However, data volumes are skyrocketing, leading to a bevy of resource challenges, such as increased licensing expenses and infrastructure costs. These challenges hinder SOCs from effectively detecting, investigating, and responding to the threats they aim to combat. 

As Desi explains, security teams must accelerate data migration while still optimizing valuable resources: “A lot of teams end up using a ton of different tools to retain and analyze this massive amount of data. You get really complex environments… But when you introduce a pipeline, a data engine like Cribl Stream into the mix, we actually sit in between your sources and destinations. What we’re doing is simplifying your telemetry data, allowing you to regain choice and control over everything coming into your environment.”

Reducing SIEM spend 

Later in the webinar, Jim shares a customer success story that illustrates a common data management challenge faced by SOCs. He describes a premier casino, resort, and conference center struggling to navigate regulatory requirements and an unruly data lake. Generating a billion dollars in annual revenue, the company was committed to improving security for itself and its customers. Fortunately, a change in ownership presented an opportunity for a new security strategy. Within 60 days of adopting Cribl Stream and New-Scale SIEM^TM from Exabeam, their SOC became leaner and more efficient than ever.

In fact, the transition to Exabeam and Cribl not only “resulted in an immediate 60% reduction in their SIEM spend, but also allowed for them to take that data and route it precisely right, ensuring compliance with those regulatory bodies.”

Improving the joint customer experience

The partnership between Exabeam and Cribl is dedicated to streamlining the joint customer experience. Users can enjoy flexible routing options, allowing them to migrate data to Exabeam while maintaining existing data dependencies. This approach accelerates data onboarding while providing cost and data control. Most importantly, the combination of Exabeam and Cribl streamlines threat detection, investigation, and response (TDIR), giving SOCs the flexibility and context needed to identify high-risk activity and respond to incidents quickly, even when multiple teams are involved.

Desi concludes, “Any source that you have security relevant data coming in from, we can take that, collect it, process it in flight and stream it on its way to a destination for Exabeam. That can be one of their many products. Maybe it’s their SIEM tooling or their security analytics tools, but we also work with other systems as well. So what that means is you can use Exabeam to do things like augment some of the other solutions you may have already in your stack so that you’re making the most of your security investments. And that’s really the choice and flexibility that Exabeam and Cribl partnering together brings to customers.”