Log analytics agent basic logs / analytics logs
Does this mean the log analytics agent will be able to send important logs directly to the LAW and mundane logs into basic logs? Or will you still need some proxy/log collector in between to distinguish all that for you? Example: I have an on-prem windows server. Will I be able to make a distinguishment with logon information and perhaps dns data ?
FinOps In Microsoft Sentinel
Microsoft Sentinel's security analytics and operations data is stored in an Azure Monitor Log Analytics workspace. Billing is based on the volume of data analyzed in Microsoft Sentinel and stored in the Log Analytics workspace. The cost of both is combined in a simplified pricing tier. Microsoft 365 data sources are always free to ingest for all Microsoft Sentinel users: Billable data sources: Although alerts are free, the raw logs for Microsoft Endpoint Defender, Defender for Cloud Apps, Microsoft Entra ID sign in and audit logs, and Azure Information Protection (AIP) data types are paid: Microsoft Sentinel data retention is free for the first 90 days. Enable Microsoft Sentinel on an Azure Monitor Log Analytics workspace and the first 10 GB/day is free for 31 days. The cost for both Log Analytics data ingestion and Microsoft Sentinel analysis charges up to the 10 GB/day limit are waived during the 31-day trial period. This free trial is subject to a 20 workspace limit per Azure tenant • By default, all tables in your workspace inherit the workspace's interactive retention setting and have no archive. • You can modify the retention and archive settings of individual tables Azure Monitor Logs retains data in two states: - Interactive retention: Lets you retain Analytics logs for interactive queries of up to 2 years. - Archive: Lets you keep older, less used data in your workspace at a reduced cost. • You can access data in the archived state by using search jobs, restore and keep data in archived state for up to 12 years • Its very important for cost management in MS Sentinel when you define short data retention period, but firstly go in Log Analytics WS | Workbooks | Workspace Usage in order to see tables size Use this workbook to analyze the the sizes of the different tables in your workspace: Where can save your money? Ingestion • Carefully plan what data is sent into your Microsoft sentinel workspace • Utilize filtering mechanisms to reduce ingestions to what the SOC needs • Set daily cap (good for PoC scenarios but not recommend for production) Retention • Send data to other storage platforms that have cheaper storage costs (Azure blob storage, Azure data explorer) Compute • Shutdown Azure machine learning compute during off hours, consider using reserved instances pricing • Set quotas on your subscription and workspaces • Use low-priority virtual machine (VM) Bandwidth • Sending data across Azure regions might incur into additional costs Ingestion planning • Analyze your data sources and decides what data is needed by your SOC for detection, investigations, hunting and enrichment. Take use-driven approach • Plan your workspace design • Existing workspaces might be ingesting data not needed by the SOC • Consider using separate workspace for Microsoft Sentinel • When possible enable Defender for Servers on the same workspace where you enable Microsoft Sentinel, you get 500 MB of free data ingestion per day • If you configure your Log Analytics agent to send data to two or more different Log Analytics workspaces (multi-homing), you'll get 500-MB free data ingestion for each workspace. Retention • Microsoft Sentinel retention is charged ($0.1/GB/month) and can become a big portion of the Microsoft Sentinel cost • 1.2 TB/day ingestion with 1-year retention (East US list prices) Ingestion: ~ $89К/month Retention: ~ $33К/month • If you require more than 90 days retention, determine if you need it for the whole workspace or just some tables • Consider using other storage platform for long storage retention (Azure blob storage, Azure data explorer) Long term retention options: • Azure blob storage • Cheaper than Microsoft sentinel retention • Difficult for query • Ideal for audit/compliance purposes Azure Data explorer Stores security logs in Azure Data Explorer on a long-term basis. Minimizes costs and provides easy access when you need to query the data and stores most of the data in the cold cache, minimizing the computing cost. Log Analytics doesn't currently support exporting custom log tables. In this scenario, you can use Azure Logic Apps to export data from Log Analytics workspaces. Because Azure Data Explorer provides long-term storage, you can reduce your Sentinel retention costs with this approach and ideal for forensic investigation and hunting on older data Can achieve up to 75% saving on retention costs Instead of using Azure Data Explorer for long-term storage of security logs, you can use Storage. This approach simplifies the architecture and can help control the cost. A disadvantage is the need to rehydrate the logs for security audits and interactive investigative queries. With Azure Data Explorer, you can move data from the cold partition to the hot partition by changing a policy. This functionality speeds up data exploration. Bandwidth Sending telemetry from one Azure region to another can incur in bandwidth costs this only affect Azure VMs that send telemetry across Azure regions data sources based on diagnostics settings are not affected not a big cost component compared to ingestion or retention Example: 1000 VMs, where each generates 1GB/day, sending data from US to EU: 1000 VMs * 1GB/day *30 days/month*$0.05/GB =$1.500/month Ingestion Cost Alert Playbook Managing cost for cloud services is an essential part of ensuring that you get maximum value for your investment in solutions running on this computing platform. Azure Sentinel is no different. To help you exercise greater control over your budget for Azure Sentinel this playbook will send you an alert should you exceed a budget that you define for your Azure Sentinel Workspace within a given time-frame With the ingestion cost alert playbook, you can set up an alert based on the budget defined in your Microsoft Sentinel workspace within a given timeframe. Ingestion Anomaly Alert Playbook This playbook sends you an alert should there be an ingestion spike into your workspace. The playbook uses the series_decompose_anomalies KQL function to determine anomalous ingestion The Workspace Usage Report workbook The Workspace Usage Report workbook provides your workspace's data consumption, cost, and usage statistics. The workbook gives the workspace's data ingestion status and amount of free and billable data. You can use the workbook logic to monitor data ingestion and costs, and to build custom views and rule-based alerts. This workbook also provides granular ingestion details. The workbook breaks down the data in your workspace by data table, and provides volumes per table and entry to help you better understand your ingestion patterns. Azure pricing model – based on volume of data ingested User Entity Behavior Analytics Approximately 10% of the cost of logs selected for UEBA Reduce To change your pricing tier commitment, select one of the other tiers on the pricing page, and then select Apply. You must have Contributor or Owner role in Microsoft Sentinel to change the pricing tier costs for Microsoft Sentinel Useful links: Tools that are related to FinOps on Azure Sentinel (Azure Pricing Calculator, Azure Cost Management, Azure Advisor, TCO Calculator, Azure Hybrid Benefit Savings Calculator) https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/fasttrack-for-azure/the-azure-finops-guide/ba-p/3704132 Manage and monitoring Costs for Microsoft Sentinel https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sentinel/billing-monitor-costs Reduce costs for Microsoft Sentinel https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sentinel/billing-reduce-costs Ingestion Cost Spike Detection Playbook https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sentinel-blog/ingestion-cost-spike-detection-playbook/ba-p/2591301 Ingestion Cost Alert Playbook https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sentinel-blog/ingestion-cost-alert-playbook/ba-p/2006003 Introducing Microsoft Sentinel Optimization Workbook https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sentinel-blog/introducing-microsoft-sentinel-optimization-workbook/ba-p/3901489
Logic app to send logs to Azure blob storage failing
Hello All, I have implemented a Logic App to move logs from LA workspace to Azure storage as outlined in https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/move-microsoft-sentinel-logs-to-azure-storage blog post by Nicolas Prigent. I am getting this error at the until step. BadRequest. Http request failed as there is an error: 'Cannot write more bytes to the buffer than the configured maximum buffer size: 104857600.'. The query it is running at the step is this. SecurityEvent | where ingestion_time() between(datetime(2022-04-27T05:00:00.0000000) .. datetime(2022-04-27T06:00:00.0000000)) When I manually ran this query in Log Analytics, I got more than 15k results. How can I increase the buffer size? Is there a better solution? Thank you for your response. -Saeed
Error ussing the powershell script to configure Long term retention on Sentinel tables.
Hi everybody. I recently use the powershell Configure-Long-Term-Retention.ps1 that is provided by the community Sentinel Github and follow the steps to change the retention of my tables on Sentinel, but every time that I do that, get the same error: Update-TablesRetention {"error":{"code":"InvalidInput","message":"One or more validation errors occurred","target":"property","details":[{"code":"InvalidParameter","message":"Unexpected character encountered while parsing value: ,. Path 'properties.retentionInDays', line 3, position 25.","target":"properties.retentionInDays"}]}} Anyone knows why I got this error? I tried whit many tables, whit old and new Sentinel instances and got the same error. Thanks in advance guys.Edit a single watchlist item
Hi, I have a watchlist, let's say it has 3000 watchlist items present. I want to modify the value of an entry - an IP address that is no longer required. Can I edit this programmatically? At present I manually have to scroll through each page of results with a CTRL+F to find on the page which is really lame. Surely there must be a better way?
Log Retention Configuration in Microsoft Sentinel for SAP Data Connector
Good day Everyone! I would like to ask if there is a specific setting that can be configured in the Microsoft Sentinel for SAP Data Connector to specify the log retention. When the Microsoft Sentinel for SAP Data Connector ingests logs from the SAP environment and sends them to the Log Analytics workspace, are local copies of the logs retained in the VM where the SAP Data Connector resides? If yes, can someone please share with us how to configure the log retention to avoid consuming all the disk space in the VM. Thank you in advance.Cost of restore / search too unpredictable. Offline solutions in mind ?
I'm perhaps not looking at a purely Microsoft Solution here, but the cost of search / restores seem too unpredictable for budgetting purposes. Especially in big organizations where companies don't like "dead capital" just lying around, waiting to be used. Are people here considering alternatives for long term archiving for compliancy and maybe threat hunting while keeping sentinel as their day-to-day SIEM for short term investigations and IOC's ?
