The Snare Agents Commercial or Open Source? - White Paper - A Prophecy International Company
Introduction to Agents The SNARE agent is the industry standard for logging security events and is used with most SIEM servers, services and MSSP s. The SNARE Agents are easy to install and upgrade, provide objective based filtering and greatly enhance the three pillars of information security: Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. The Snare Agents are issued as both a free Open Source download as well as a commercially supported Enterprise Agent. When deciding which type of Agent your organization should use, the following questions should be considered: 1. Support - If you need a supported security platform, then you need to use the Enterprise Agent. The Open Source agent is provided to the open source community free of charge and as issued. The Enterprise Agents include maintenance, upgrades, bug fixes and customer support of the product and you as a customer. 2. Complete and Factual - If your organization needs to know that every log will be captured and forwarded with integrity, then you need to use the Enterprise Agents. The Open Source Agent does not support TCP, caching, custom event logs, UTC or registry audits. 3. Sensitivity and Confidentiality - If your organization works with sensitive data, then you need to use the Snare Enterprise Agents which includes the ability to support best practices and encryption protocols. Vendor Support Customer, Product and Technical Support, ensuring compliance. Windows2012 / Windows8 Agent supported on all Windows platforms, including W2012 and W8 platforms. Custom Windows Event Logs Capture and transmit non-standard and third party Windows Event Logs. Event Log Caching Caching of events in case of a network disruption ensures that the events are not lost. TCP Confirmed log message delivery with Smart TCP - no lost or missing logs. Encryption with TLS/SSL* Protecting the confidentiality and integrity of log messages in transit. PCI DSS v3.0 Compliance Requires a supported platform and custom event logs. InterSect Alliance..A Prophecy International Company Page 2
Monitor Registry Events Ability to apply auditing to sections of the registry and report changes. Dynamic DNS Provides uninterrupted real time 24x7 operation. USB Devices External device monitoring, such as USB devices UTC Use UTC time zone normalization to ensure the correct sequencing of events by standardizing across geographies and time zones. Agent Heartbeat Heartbeats sent out to inform the collecting device that the agent is operational. Multiple Destinations Log message simulcasting allows distribution of events to multiple destinations. Single MSI A single smart MSI for all Windows platforms for simple and error free distribution. Snare Agent Management Console For the mass management, monitoring and configuration of the agents. Monitor Policy Status The agent sends an audit event any time it attempts to make a change to the local security policy. Service Tracking The agent sends audit events on service operations such as starting, stopping, errors, memory usage and configuration fingerprints. Group Policy Support Group Policy Objects (e.g. ADM files) can be used to configure the agent. Monitor Agent Configuration Changes Administrators can remotely monitor changes to the agent s configuration. Event Throttling Event throughput EPS control if there is a limited, restricted or low band width. Light on Resources 1. Small deployment footprint (< 5MB) 2. Minimal Host resource requirements (E.G. <5% of CPU) InterSect Alliance..A Prophecy International Company Page 3
3. Minimal Host Memory Requirements (E.G. less than 20Mb) Regulation Compliance Helps gather information to comply with NISPOM, PCI, SOX or other regulations. Real Time Event Filtering Finding, filtering and forwarding in real time, so that as events are generated, they are automatically sent to the SIEM server. Only required events are forwarded, thus reducing network traffic and back end server and analysis resources. Installer Easy to use installer / Silent install option UDP Fire and forget message delivery. Locale Date Information If there are locations where the language is not English, the Agent uses a fixed date and time locale of US English to ensure the integrity of the log record. Stability The event collection minimizes any interference with the host's operating system and applications, so that the service can be as stable and independent as possible. Latency and Real Time Operation in real time mode, so as the events are generated, they are automatically sent to the SIEM server without delay or the risk of compromise. Easily Tailorable to Event Log Format Native Snare and multiple syslog headers options. Remote Control Interface Snare allows you to remotely control the agents when the audit/event logging configuration of the target system needs to be dynamically changed. Native OS Audit Control The Agents can configure the native event sub-system to generate only specific events required by the security policy. Upgrading Upgrade option to preserve existing configuration settings *This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL project for use in the OpenSSL toolkit. (http://www.openssl.org/) InterSect Alliance..A Prophecy International Company Page 4
Summary Centralized log management and analysis is essential to assuring the integrity of critical logs and achieving compliance with a growing list of regulations. However the requisite process of transmitting log data across public or even private networks can simultaneously work against these important objectives and, while the Snare Enterprise Agents address these requirements, most logging solutions do not. Are the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of distributed system logs critical to you? Do you currently manage a large deployment of Open Source Snare Agents? Are you looking for a costeffective, centralized log analysis and management system? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then Snare Enterprise Agents offer high-value capabilities that simply cannot be found in any other solution available today. Many thousands of organizations, including Fortune 500, government agencies, multinational businesses and highly sensitive sites around the world rely on Snare every second of every day as the platform of choice for audit, collection, analysis, reporting, management and archival of event information., the Trusted, Low risk, High Value choice. For more information visit us at www.intersectalliance.com or contact us as follows: The Americas 1 (800) 834 1060 Toll Free or +1 (303) 488 3451 Denver Asia Pacific +61 8 8213 1200 Adelaide Australia Europe and the UK +44 (797) 090 5011 or email us at intersect@intersectalliance.com Intersect Alliance International Pty Ltd shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for direct, or indirect damages in connection with the use of this material. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means except as expressly permitted by Intersect Alliance International Pty Ltd. The Intersect Alliance logo and Snare logo are registered trademarks of Intersect Alliance International Pty Ltd. Other trademarks and trade names are marks and names of their owners as may or may not be indicated. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used here in an editorial context without intent of infringement. Specifications and content are subject to change without notice. InterSect Alliance..A Prophecy International Company Page 5