In the modern IT ecosystem, securing containerized applications in environments like Kubernetes is vital. Tools like Falco help address this need by providing tooling that can be integrated within Elastic Security. Falco is a cloud-native security tool that provides runtime security across hosts, containers, Kubernetes, and cloud environments.

Being a security analyst today is hard. You’re constantly trying to protect your organization while feeling like attackers are always a step ahead of you. Every year, you seem to add more security technologies to your stack, yet you still find yourself facing tooling gaps. If only you had the ability to clearly compare different products and their capabilities, you think.

As I celebrate my first year as head of product management at Graylog, I’ve had the unique privilege of re-immersing myself in the world of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) from a new perspective. The past year has underscored one critical lesson: staying competitive in SIEM isn’t about adding features; it’s about finding fresh approaches to meet the real needs of security teams.

Elastic Security 8.16 is now available, advancing our mission to streamline security workflows with enhanced data accessibility and AI-driven analytics. Key updates include agentless onboarding for faster cloud security posture management (CSPM) and asset discovery; expanded integrations with Wiz, AWS Security Hub, and Falco for contextualized threat detection; custom knowledge sources for Elastic AI Assistant; and improved support for locally hosted large language models (LLMs).

Cyber threats are relentless, sophisticated, and growing. To stay ahead, you can no longer treat threat intelligence as an optional tool—it’s the backbone of a proactive, defense-ready strategy. Threat intelligence feeds bring crucial insights to security teams, from high-level trends to detailed indicators of compromise (IoCs). But no single feed can capture every potential threat. Threat landscapes evolve rapidly and adversaries employ diverse techniques and targets.

Cisco Umbrella is a platform for monitoring and maintaining the DNS-layer security across your network. It monitors network activity and detects behavior like DNS hijacking, spoofing, and other attacks. It can then reroute or block potentially malicious requests before they reach endpoints. However, while Umbrella’s DNS-layer security blocks malicious domains, the sheer volume of DNS and proxy logs it generates can overwhelm security teams.

Many organizations lack clear visibility into the efficiency of their security processes, making it difficult to accurately assess their security teams’ performance. Without insight into key factors like alert response speed, investigation thoroughness, and the accuracy of detection rules, teams risk operating without a clear view. This can lead to missed threats, inefficient use of resources, and an inability to improve security outcomes.

Everyone remembers that one required writing class they needed to take. If you’re like a lot of other security analysts, you assumed that your job would focus on using technology, not writing research papers. However, in today’s business environment, cyber incidents are critical business events, especially as governments and agencies create more reporting requirements.