The security information and event management (SIEM) market is in a state of flux, with significant consolidation and restructuring continuing to shake up the industry. This has left many security teams uncertain about the future of their critical monitoring and incident response tools. Many SIEM customers are being forced to migrate or wait out being able to make new decisions about what SIEM is really the best for their needs and their budget. 

As organizations reevaluate their SIEM (and other security operations tools) in the face of this disruption and the subsequent waiting periods, it’s an opportune time to reassess the essential characteristics of an effective SIEM solution — especially considering that while machine-generated data is growing at ~30% CAGR, budgets are not. Meanwhile, the frequency of cyber-attacks has increased 71% year-over-year and the average cost per data breach has now reached $4.88M in 2024. Having the right SIEM remains critical.

Business and security leaders looking for a different way of building future-proof, modern and affordable security operations centers might consider focusing on these four key feature questions when looking under the hood of current and future SIEM:   

Does the SIEM offer threat intelligence and advanced analytics for swift threat detection?

An effective SIEM tool will have the ability to provide data-driven insights to security teams long before threats can present material danger to the organization. AI-powered security analytics are pivotal to keeping up in today’s fast-moving threat environment. Security leaders must prioritize solutions that offer the ability to correlate internal telemetry with external threat intelligence at scale, combined with powerful analytics like user behavior monitoring. These combined features are increasingly necessary for identifying and preventing sophisticated, AI-powered attacks.

Can you count on seamless integration and a smooth deployment? 

When selecting a SIEM solution, an important (and sometimes overlooked) consideration is how easily this tool can deploy and integrate into existing workflows to make an immediate impact. An open, API-driven SIEM that can integrate with a diverse array of existing security tools and data sources is essential for maintaining complete visibility and streamlining security workflows. Security leaders must also consider SIEM tools that boast intuitive, user-friendly interfaces and streamlined deployment models that maximize analyst productivity and accelerate time-to-value. Ensuring this prevents any downtime when onboarding SIEM applications — so security teams can efficiently learn how to use and implement its features. 

Does it make compliance and reporting easy and efficient? 

As we continue to see government regulation ramp up around cyber incident reporting, software components and development, and more — within the U.S. and globally — prioritizing a SIEM vendor that is committed to ensuring compliance is crucial. With developing data and software regulations including Software Bill of Materials, secure by design standards, mandatory cyber incident reporting, and many more across the globe — robust compliance features and customizable reporting capabilities help organizations efficiently satisfy and juggle these regulatory requirements, while also fostering transparency across various stakeholders.

Does it scale, is it fast and does it perform exceptionally well?

Security data volumes and attack complexity continue to grow — with the total amount of data created, captured, copied and consumed globally forecasted to reach 180 zettabytes by 2025 (increasing from 64.2 zettabytes in 2020). This snowballing data growth fosters a perfect environment for bad actors to carry out cyber-attacks — as organizations across sectors are increasingly overwhelmed with the amount of data they’re creating, managing and sharing. As a result, a SIEM must provide cloud-native scalability and real-time processing power, to keep pace with ever-growing data and evolving security needs. SIEMs that can instantaneously crawl an organization’s expanding data environment, without sacrificing speed and automation capabilities — will be the key to maximizing security operations in the coming years. 

In our era of constantly evolving cyber threats and technology market disruption, security teams can no longer rely on rigid, legacy SIEM tools — or they risk exposing their organizations to critically damaging cyber threats that could cost millions. By implementing SIEMs that can provide advanced analytics and threat intelligence, keep up with regulations and compliance so security leaders can focus on the big picture, and scale to manage fast-growing data volumes — organizations can navigate the SIEM chaos and build agile, future-proof security operations that stay ahead of adversaries.