Malta’s primary public financial institution selects LogRhythm’s integrated log management and SIEM solution

9 February 2012 - LogRhythm, the leader in log management and SIEM 2.0, today announced that the Central Bank of Malta has chosen to deploy its integrated log management and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution, to automate its security procedures and improve operational efficiency across the organisation. The Bank is also using LogRhythm’s solution to ensure industry best practice procedures are being followed and to enhance the organisation’s data security.

As Malta’s primary public financial institution, the Bank needs to ensure it is running at optimum operational efficiency at all times. However, as the Bank was generating increasingly large volumes of log data, its existing system of manually reviewing logs became a time-consuming process that was ineffective and difficult to manage. As such, the Bank wanted a centralised and automated solution that could not only collect all logs generated across the organisation’s whole infrastructure, but could also analyse the logs collected in real-time while providing a consolidated overview of events. Furthermore, the Bank required a solution that would help with maintaining the security of its IT estate by providing automatic and centralised services such as threat correlation and analysis.

After reviewing a wide variety of solutions from several vendors, many of which were included in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for SIEM, the Bank chose LogRhythm’s integrated log management and SIEM platform. This was primarily due to the solution’s ability to automatically analyse logs in real time, its advanced reporting capabilities, and the fact that it comes fully configured while retaining enough flexibility that it can be tailored to the Bank’s specific needs.

“In the long term, we could not keep up the resource-draining venture of manually collecting and analysing the two millions logs generated daily by the Bank’s systems. We needed a complete logging system with real-time monitoring, that was centralised and intelligent, and which provided 360 degree visibility across our networks,” said Saviour Busuttil, head of the Bank’s Information Systems and Knowledge Management department. “During evaluation, LogRhythm’s log management platform excelled due to its advanced reporting capabilities, which allowed us to easily view and understand the analysis of all log data collected. As a result, since deployment, we’ve optimised processes across systems and improved operational efficiencies throughout the Bank’s IT infrastructure.”

The Bank is also using LogRhythm’s solution to identify and track anomalous activity that occurs across its networks, including potential security threats, as confirmed by Glen Lethridge, manager Technology and Knowledge Services office.

Lethridge continues: “The LogRhythm’s solution allowed us to solve problems quickly by showing consolidated user account activity.  Without the reports produced by the LogRhythm system, it would have taken us longer to identify and address issues as promptly.”

“While a central bank is not required to comply with the same regulatory obligations that commercial banks face, LogRhythm’s comprehensive understanding of regulatory requirements also contributed to the decision as we recognised that these are a key indicator of what is expected across the industry. The LogRhythm platform has enabled the Bank to meet industry best practice standards and now forms the basis of a data management and security strategy that is equal to any found within the financial sector.”

Ross Brewer, vice president and managing director International Markets, LogRhythm, said,  “As a public organisation with the primary objective of maintaining price stability, it is essential the Bank ’s day-to-day operations run as smoothly as possible. With an expanding IT infrastructure generating increasingly large volumes of log data, the organisation was facing an ever more complicated challenge when it came to maintaining operational efficiency. By deploying LogRhythm, not only has the Bank acquired the deep insight into the IT estate required to achieve this key objective, it can also ensure industry best practice procedures are being followed whilst significantly enhancing the organisation’s data security.”