Black Hat 2024: How the AI-Powered SIEM Can Save You Money — and Time

It's no longer sufficient for security incident and event management (SIEM) platforms to just detect threats and create alerts … today's SIEMS have to be affordable, intelligent, and make a regular difference for SOC analysts, according to Kash Shaikh, president and CEO of Securonix, who stops by the Dark Reading News Desk during Black Hat USA. "Cost is a challenge, and while security is important, some of the SIEM solutions in the market are very expensive," Shaikh says. "And some of them are not necessarily providing a comprehensive view of what's going on from a threat perspective to be able to secure the environment and protect the business."

Taking advantage of AI and generative AI, Shaikh advocates implementation of the noise-cancelling SIEM, which can reduce the number of alerts an analyst must review directly by as much as 50%. He also points to use of a data fabric within the SIEM to differentiate between security data and compliance data. "If you're paying for a SIEM that is treating both [data types] at the same rate, you're spending a lot more money than you need to," he explains. A data fabric only serves only up relevant data to protect the enterprise and reduce the total cost of ownership.

Shaikh also mentions the consolidation in the SIEM market, and how many of the recent mergers and acquisitions may prove disruptive for those companies' customers. Forcing customers to change platforms is really challenging, since SIEMs are mission-critical to customers, he adds. "That's a lot of disruption for these customers because now they have to work on a different architecture, which is not what they signed up for," Shaikh says. "So now they're looking at all the alternatives and we are seeing a lot of inbound demand from customers going through these challenges."

Kash Shaikh is president and CEO of Securonix, a cybersecurity startup focused on AI-reinforced threat detection, investigation, and response. With over 30 years of experience in executive roles across Fortune 50 and small-cap companies, Kash has a record of driving profitable growth in the software, SaaS, and AI infrastructure markets. Before joining Securonix, Kash was president and CEO at Virtana, an observability software company, where he transformed the company to achieve sustained profitability and expanded into new segments such as FinOps and AIOps. At Dell, Kash served as the enterprise solutions business general manager, where he drove significant operational efficiencies and expanded margins, achieving a 28% CAGR over three years. Kash has also held leadership and executive positions at Ruckus Wireless, Hewlett Packard, Cisco, and Nortel Networks.