Cyberattacks are increasingly sophisticated, making traditional digital security tools insufficient to protect organizations from malicious actors.

In 2015, Gartner defined a category of solutions called User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA).
Its big advantage is monitoring suspicious behaviors of human users and devices in corporate networks through algorithms and machine learning, determining if there are threats and issuing alerts to security teams.

In this article, we explain more about this subject, which is extremely important for the security of your company. To facilitate your reading, we divided our text into the following topics:

• What Is User and Entity Behavior Analytics?
• How Does UEBA Work?
• What Are Its Three Pillars?
• What Are the Benefits of UEBA?
• Disadvantages of User and Entity Behavior Analytics
• Best Practices for User and Entity Behavior Analytics
• What Is the Difference Between SIEM and UEBA?
• UEBA X NTA
• What Is UBA and What Is It For?
• What Is the Difference Between UBA and UEBA?
• senhasegura UEBA Solution
• About senhasegura
• Conclusion

Enjoy the read!

What Is User and Entity Behavior Analytics?

User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) is a digital security feature that uses algorithms and machine learning to identify abnormal behaviors in users, routers, servers, and endpoints of a network.

In practice, this technology allows alerting IT administrators about anomalies and automatically disconnecting users with unusual behavior from the network, as it monitors human and machine behavior.

With this, it helps detect people and equipment that could compromise an organization’s system, strengthening its digital security and sovereignty.

How Does UEBA Work?

To ensure the effectiveness of User and Entity Behavior Analytics, it is necessary to implement this feature in the organization’s infrastructure, which can be targeted by malicious attackers.

Moreover, many corporations ask their employees to install this solution on their home routers to avoid risks. This is because the professional may have to access the corporate network using their own router, generating security vulnerabilities.

It is very simple to understand how UEBA works. Let’s imagine an unauthorized user steals an employee’s credentials and accesses the network. This does not make them capable of imitating this employee’s usual behavior.

Therefore, UEBA issues alerts, which reveal suspicious behavior to IT administrators. A UEBA solution has three essential elements. They are analytics, integration, and presentation.

Analytics collects and organizes data about the behavior of human users and entities to determine what should be considered normal. Through this system, profiles are created of how each user behaves when accessing the network. Thus, one can develop models that allow the identification of suspicious behavior.

With the growth and evolution of corporations, it becomes necessary to integrate UEBA into other security systems. Through proper integration, UEBA solutions compare information collected from different sources, which optimizes the system.

Finally, the presentation involves how User and Entity Behavior Analytics responds to abnormal behaviors. It depends on what is defined by the company.

Some UEBA systems are configured to simply create an alert, suggesting an investigation for IT administrators. Others are configured to perform additional actions, such as disconnecting an employee with abnormal behavior.

What Are Its Three Pillars?

According to Gartner, a UEBA solution has three pillars:

• Use cases;
• Data sources; and
• Analytical methods.

Use cases refer to the behavior of human or machine users reported by User and Entity Behavior Analytics, which monitors, identifies, and alerts about anomalies. Unlike systems that perform specialized analysis, UEBA technology needs to be relevant to different use cases.

When we talk about data sources, we refer to repositories of information that feed into UEBA, since User and Entity Behavior Analytics does not collect data directly from IT environments.

Analytical methods are what enable UEBA to identify abnormal behavior. They include threat signatures, statistical models, rules, and machine learning.

What Are the Benefits of UEBA?

Traditional security solutions have proven ineffective at protecting corporations from sophisticated cyberattacks, which has boosted the rise of User and Entity Behavior Analytics, as it allows one to identify even the smallest of unusual behaviors.
Its main benefits include:

Broad Approach to Cyberattacks

In addition to monitoring the behavior of human users, UEBA monitors devices such as endpoints, servers, and routers, which are often targeted by malicious attackers.

Thus, User and Entity Behavior Analytics detects a wide variety of cyberattacks, including insider threats, compromised accounts, brute force attacks, and DDoS.

Operational Efficiency

With the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, UEBA solutions can replace the workforce of IT employees, which represents a benefit for corporations and security teams.

Nevertheless, User and Entity Behavior Analytics does not generate a drastic reduction in IT staff, especially in larger organizations, due to the complexity of security requirements, which require skilled people to configure systems and guide employees.

These professionals may also be responsible for investigating abnormal behaviors if the company decides to investigate them before taking measures.

In addition, IT analysts can develop other projects, working strategically for business growth.

Cost Reduction

With the reduction of the IT team, an organization consequently reduces costs. Also, by detecting abnormal behavior and preventing cyberattacks, companies prevent losses by stopping activities.
They also avoid having their customers’ and employees’ data exposed, which could result in fines due to data protection laws.

Risk Reduction

With professionals connected to corporate networks, including in a home environment, vulnerabilities caused by cyber threats increase gradually, making protection solutions in silos insufficient.

For IT teams, it is impossible to manually monitor all devices in use. Hence the perks of UEBA solutions.
It is worth mentioning that UEBA resources are not limited to ensuring information security. They also enable compliance with security standards for regulated industries, avoiding problems that could lead to lawsuits and fines for companies, as previously mentioned.

Disadvantages of User and Entity Behavior Analytics

The UEBA solutions also have some negative aspects. The first one is its high price, which can make this technology inaccessible to small and medium-sized businesses.

Another disadvantage of User and Entity Behavior Analytics is the slow deployment. Although many vendors claim this system can be deployed in a short time, Gartner customers say that in simple use cases, it can take three to six months, and in complex situations, it can take up to 18 months.

In addition, the view UEBA offers over network behaviors is restricted as its logs are enabled on a small part of a corporation’s network.

It is also important to keep in mind UEBA needs third-party logs to work. Failures in the generation of these logs impact its function.

Best Practices for User and Entity Behavior Analytics

User and Entity Behavior Analytics is designed to identify abnormal behaviors of humans and machines.
However, this solution should not be used in isolation but associated with other monitoring systems, in order to improve the digital security of an organization. Other best practices for companies using UEBA resources are:

• Avoiding false alerts and overloading of generated data, taking advantage of big data resources, and using machine learning and statistical analysis;
• Creating security policies taking into account insider and external threats;
  Ensuring that only information security professionals receive alerts from UEBA; and
• Not underestimating the risks posed by unprivileged user accounts, as hackers can increase privileges to gain access to sensitive systems.

What Is the Difference Between SIEM and UEBA?

Like UEBA, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features tools that make it possible to improve information security through normal patterns and suspicious behaviors.

The notable difference is that User and Entity Behavior Analytics uses data from human and machine user behavior to define what is normal.

Because SIEM is rule-based, malicious actors can circumvent these guidelines to attack a corporation. Also, SIEM detects threats that happen in real-time, but it is inefficient to prevent sophisticated attacks performed over months or years.

UEBA, on the other hand, is not based on rules, but on risk-scoring techniques and algorithms, which make it possible to detect abnormal behavior over a much longer period.

UEBA X NTA

Like UEBA, Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions are based on machine learning, advanced analytics, and security rules, and monitor user behavior on corporate networks. Moreover, it detects suspicious actions and threats.

However, this technology has other advantages. One is to allow companies to visualize everything that happens on their network, including in the context of a cyberattack. NTA also makes it possible to create network profiles and devices, with easy deployment.

We emphasize these two solutions should be used in a complementary way, since NTA alone does not track local events, nor detect advanced security problems.

What Is UBA and What Is It For?

User Behavior Analytics (UBA) is a technology that allows one to identify unusual or abnormal behaviors, detect intrusions, and minimize their consequences.

Through UBA solutions, one can discover an invasion promoted by cybercriminals or find out if an employee is misusing the data to which they have access.

The focus of User Behavior Analytics is on user analytics, their accounts, and identity, not machine behavior.

What Is the Difference Between UBA and UEBA?

The difference between UBA and UEBA is that, in the first case, we refer to a solution that monitors human users to detect any anomalies in their behavior.

The extra “e” in UEBA extends monitoring to machine entities such as routers, servers, endpoints, and devices in general.

The acronym was updated in 2017 by Gartner to show that in addition to tracking human users, it is essential to identify threats related to devices and applications.

senhasegura UEBA Solution

senhasegura has a UEBA solution embedded in its PAM security platform, which allows one to monitor the behavior of human and machine users automatically.

This technology features a self-learning mechanism to identify and respond to changes in users’ behavior patterns and access profiles.

Some of the main characteristics are:

• Analysis of user session based on behavioral history;
• Identification of accesses and check of suspects by a series of criteria;
• Identification of unusual behavior with abnormality alerts for SIEM/SYSLOG;
• Detailed dashboards with a visual representation of incidents and threats, which allow a security team to act quickly;
• Algorithms are continuously adjusted to user behavior.

Its benefits include:

• Restriction of privilege abuse;
• Fast detection of attacks and compromised accounts;
• Control over the user’s administrative actions;
• Automatic response to suspected credential theft.

About senhasegura

We, from senhasegura, are part of the group of information security companies MT4 Tecnologia, founded in 2001, and we aim to provide digital sovereignty to our customers through the control of privileged actions and data.

With this, we prevent data leaks and theft, as we manage privileged permissions before, during, and after access through machine automation. We work to:

Optimizing the performance of companies, avoiding interruption of operations;
Performing automatic audits on the use of permissions;
Auditing privileged changes to detect abuse of privilege automatically;
Providing advanced solutions with the PAM Security Platform;
Reducing cyber threats; and
Bringing the organizations that hire us into compliance with audit requirements and standards such as PCI DSS, Sarbanes-Oxley, ISO 27001, and HIPAA.

Conclusion

In this article, you saw that:

• User and Entity Behavior Analytics uses algorithms and machine learning to identify abnormal behaviors in users, whether they are humans or machine entities;
• This solution allows alerting IT administrators about anomalies and automatically disconnecting users with unusual network behavior;
• To ensure the effectiveness of User and Entity Behavior Analytics, it is necessary to install this feature on the organization’s and employees’ devices;
• A UEBA solution has three essential elements. They are analytics, integration, and presentation;
• According to Gartner, a UEBA solution also has three pillars: the use cases, the data sources, and the analytical methods;
• The benefits of UEBA include: a broad approach to cyberattacks, reduction of human labor, cost reduction, and risk reduction;
• Among its negative aspects, the high price and slow deployment stand out;
• The creation of security policies that take into account insider and external threats is among the best practices in the use of UEBA solutions;
• It is also recommended to consider the risks presented by users without privileges;
  SIEM differs from UEBA because it is rule-based and detects only threats that occur in real-time.
  NTA allows organizations to view all the activities that occur on their network, including in the context of a cyberattack, and enables the creation of network profiles and devices, with easy deployment;
• The difference between UBA and UEBA is that the first provides for the monitoring of human users and, in the second case, it is extended to machines.

On the last March 7th, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) issued a new emergency amendment requiring regulated airlines and airports to increase their capacity to face cyber attacks. The measure was taken less than a week after the United States government announced its national cyber security strategy, following similar requirements directed at freight and passenger rail carriers.

According to the issued statement, TSA’s priority is to protect the United States transportation system, working collaboratively with stakeholders and offering safe, secure, and efficient travel. This was necessary due to hackers who have attacked the aviation industry using different invasion methods.

In July 2022, American Airlines was a victim of a phishing attack, granting unauthorized access to its IT environment. In addition, various airports in the United States were targeted by DDoS attacks in October of the same year.

For this reason, regulated entities affected by the TSA must promote the following actions:

• Develop network segmentation policies and controls, ensuring that operational technology systems continue to function securely in case of a compromise of IT;
• Create access control measures, protecting critical systems from unauthorized access;
• Implement continuous monitoring and detection policies and procedures to identify and respond to cyber security threats and anomalies; and
• Reduce the risks of exploitation of uncorrected systems by applying security patches and updates on operating systems, applications, drivers, and firmware through a risk-based methodology.

Previously imposed requirements for aircraft operators and airports include establishing a cyber security point of contact, developing and adopting a cyber security incident response plan, conducting a cyber security vulnerability assessment, and reporting significant cyber security incidents to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the new amendment issued by the TSA is their latest effort to ensure that transportation operators improve their ability to address cyber threats. In this article, we covered its goals and importance.

According to Cybersecurity Ventures, the world ended 2020 with 300 billion passwords to protect. And the trend shows this number will increase dramatically. Email accounts (personal and professional), banking services, corporate systems, devices, and applications are some examples that require authentication through passwords. And with the increase in the number of data leaks, it is easy to find compromised credentials on forums on the dark web being sold for pennies.

And yes, we know that it is not easy to manage so many passwords. Even the most tech-savvy can struggle to manage and protect credentials in so many different environments. In times of personal data protection legislation, such as LGPD and GDPR, ensuring the protection of such data has become more than a security requirement – it is a business must.

Despite all the risks associated with their use, many users and companies use passwords that are easy to guess, such as numbers or sequential letters (123456 or abcdef). SolarWinds itself, the victim of a serious attack on its supply chain, was using the password solarwinds123 in its infrastructure. Certainly, your email password or mine is stronger than the one used by this American technology company.

So, on this World Password Day, here are some tips that should be considered by users to keep their data protected:

1. Use long and complex passwords. This prevents hackers from using techniques to guess them. However, just using complex passwords may not be enough to protect them from hackers.
2. Many devices are configured with default passwords. Change them immediately.
3. Avoid reusing your passwords on different accounts. Also, constantly check if you have already been the victim of a data leak through senhasegura Hunter. If so, change your passwords immediately.
4. Configure your passwords to be changed frequently. The ideal is at least every 3 months.
5. Do not write down, store in an easily accessible place, or share your passwords with others, thus avoiding unauthorized access.
6. Consider password management solutions, or even privileged access management (PAM), to manage the use of systems and devices.
7. Use Multiple-Factor Authentication (MFA) mechanisms to add a layer of security to your accounts.
8. Set up means of retrieving access, such as including phone numbers or emails.

Passwords are one of the oldest security mechanisms in the computing world and are also one of the main attackvectors by hackers. And in the “new normal” era, with increasing threats resulting from the covid-19 pandemic, it is vital that users be alert and properly protect their digital identities. In this way, we can avoid cyberattacks that can cause considerable damage not only to people, but also to companies. And on this World Password Day, remember: security starts with you!