Building a Custom SIEM for Threat Detection: A Practical Guide

Introduction: Why SIEM Matters in Cybersecurity

Imagine detecting a cyber attack before it happens. That’s what Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools do — they collect, analyze, and correlate security logs to help organizations detect and respond to threats in real time.

But commercial SIEM solutions like Splunk, IBM QRadar, or ArcSight are expensive. What if you could build your own custom SIEM for free? That’s exactly what we’ll do in this guide using the ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana).

🚀 By the end of this article, you’ll know how to:

✅ Set up your own SIEM system ✅ Collect and analyze security logs from different sources ✅ Detect real-world cyber attacks using log correlation ✅ Build a threat monitoring dashboard in Kibana

Let’s get started! 🔥

What is SIEM and Why Do You Need One?

Cyber attacks are getting more sophisticated every day. Security teams need real-time visibility into network activity to detect threats before they cause damage.

🔹 Key Functions of a SIEM System:

• Log Collection: Gathers logs from firewalls…