UEBA (User Entity and Behavior Analytics)

What is User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)?

User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) is a cybersecurity solution that uses advanced analytics and machine learning to detect suspicious activity across an organization's digital environment. By monitoring users, devices, applications, and networks, UEBA establishes patterns of normal behavior and identifies potentially threatening deviations.

Here's where UEBA really shines: catching threats that slip past traditional security tools. These might include compromised admin credentials that look legitimate or a disgruntled insider slowly exfiltrating data at 2 AM. While your security information and event management (SIEM) might miss these “low-and-slow” attacks, UEBA's baselining catches the subtle signs. One customer saw their threat dwell time drop from 108 days to just six after deployment.

Why Organizations Need UEBA

Organizations deploy UEBA as a vital part of their security infrastructure to combat threats that traditional security tools struggle to identify. Since internal threats often use legitimate credentials and access patterns, UEBA's continuous behavior monitoring provides crucial early warning signals that help prevent data breaches before they occur.

UEBA delivers measurable business value by dramatically reducing threat detection time, strengthening security defenses, and supporting regulatory compliance through comprehensive user activity monitoring. When integrated with existing security systems, UEBA helps safeguard sensitive assets, preserve customer confidence, and protect against both financial losses and reputation damage.

How Does UEBA Work?

UEBA solutions rely on advanced data analytics and machine-learning algorithms to identify patterns and detect user and entity behavior anomalies. Here's how UEBA operates on a technical level:

Data collection and integration: The system gathers information from across the IT infrastructure, including network traffic, endpoint logs, application logs, user activity logs, and access control systems. This comprehensive data collection reveals how users and entities interact with organizational systems. ‍
Pattern recognition and baseline creation: Analysis of collected data establishes normal behavior patterns. These baselines are unique to individual users and entities, considering factors like typical login times, file access frequency, usual IP addresses, and network activity patterns. ‍
Continuous monitoring and detection: The system performs continuous monitoring of real-time activity, comparing it against established baselines. Deviations from normal behavior trigger alerts — for instance, when an employee typically working from one location suddenly accesses the network from another country. ‍
Threat assessment and scoring: The system assigns each detected anomaly a risk score based on severity and potential impact. These scores enable security teams to prioritize their response to the most critical threats. ‍
Response and mitigation: Integration with security tools such as SIEM and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) platforms enables automated or manual threat response. This connected approach ensures rapid containment and mitigation of security incidents.

How UEBA Strengthens Security Posture

UEBA is crucial for cybersecurity because it provides a more sophisticated and comprehensive method of detecting and responding to threats. Traditional security tools like firewalls and antivirus software rely on predefined rules and signatures to identify malicious activity. However, cybercriminals are constantly evolving their tactics to evade detection. UEBA’s ability to detect abnormal behavior based on deviations from the established baseline makes it effective against unknown or emerging threats.

Key reasons why UEBA is essential to cybersecurity include:

Insider threat detection: Insider threats, whether malicious or accidental, can be challenging to detect. UEBA identifies unusual behavior that may indicate an insider is acting maliciously or has been compromised. ‍
Account compromise identification: Attackers often use stolen credentials to move laterally within a network. UEBA can detect signs of compromised accounts by spotting behaviors inconsistent with the legitimate user's typical actions. ‍
Advanced persistent threat (ATP) response: APTs involve sophisticated tactics and prolonged attacks that traditional security measures might miss. UEBA helps detect and respond to these threats by recognizing subtle changes in behavior over time. ‍
Incident response enhancement: UEBA enables security teams to respond more quickly and effectively to potential threats by providing context and risk scores for detected anomalies. ‍
Compliance and audit support: Many industries are subject to regulations that require monitoring and reporting on user activity. UEBA helps organizations meet these compliance requirements by providing detailed insights into user behavior.

Real-World Examples of UEBA Usage

Financial sector implementation: Banks and financial institutions use UEBA to monitor employee access to sensitive financial information. If an employee suddenly starts accessing large amounts of customer data or makes unusual transfers, UEBA will detect this behavior and trigger an alert for further investigation. ‍
Healthcare data protection: UEBA helps healthcare organizations monitor access to patient records. If a healthcare worker attempts to access patient information outside of their department or usual working hours, UEBA flags this as a potential insider threat or privacy violation. ‍
Government security measures: Government agencies use UEBA to protect sensitive information and national security data. By monitoring user activities and identifying unusual access patterns, UEBA helps prevent espionage and unauthorized data exfiltration. ‍
E-commerce fraud detection: UEBA detects fraudulent activities on e-commerce websites. If a user account shows a sudden spike in purchase activity or changes in shipping addresses that deviate from their typical behavior, UEBA can identify these anomalies as potential fraud. ‍
Manufacturing asset protection: UEBA monitors access to proprietary designs and intellectual property in manufacturing. If an employee attempts to download or transfer sensitive design files without prior authorization, UEBA can detect this and alert security teams to a potential insider threat.

How UEBA Fits Into the SOC Suite of Tools

While UEBA is powerful on its own, its true value emerges when integrated with other security tools in the SOC tech stack:

SIEM: UEBA and SIEM work together to provide a comprehensive view of security incidents. While SIEM collects and correlates security events from various sources, UEBA focuses on behavior analysis. Integrating UEBA with SIEM enhances the detection of complex threats by combining rule-based alerts with behavior-based insights, providing a more accurate picture of potential security incidents. ‍
SOAR: UEBA’s anomaly detection capabilities can trigger automated responses in a SOAR platform. For example, if UEBA identifies a high-risk anomaly, SOAR can automatically isolate the affected system, block access, or initiate a predefined incident response procedure. This integration reduces response times and limits the impact of security incidents. ‍
Threat intelligence platforms (TIPs): TIPs aggregate threat intelligence from various sources to provide context about known threats. By integrating UEBA with a TIP, organizations can enrich behavior analytics with threat intelligence, enabling more accurate risk assessments. For example, if a UEBA system detects behavior consistent with a known threat actor, it can cross-reference this with data from a TIP to validate the threat and take appropriate action.

Anomali and UEBA

Anomali's Security and IT Operations Platform incorporates UEBA functionality by combining machine learning with advanced analytics to detect suspicious behavior patterns. Its core capabilities include:

Behavior analysis: Creates baselines of normal activity for users and devices, monitoring login patterns, locations, and system access. ‍
Anomaly identification: Detects deviations from normal behavior that may signal insider threats or compromised accounts. ‍
Threat intelligence integration: Enriches behavioral analysis with external threat data to validate and contextualize potential threats. ‍
Risk assessment: Provides risk scoring and correlates anomalies with other threat indicators to improve detection accuracy. ‍
Automated response: Triggers immediate actions when suspicious behavior is detected, from alerts to account lockdowns. ‍
Enterprise coverage: Monitors behavior across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.

See UEBA in action: Schedule a demo to discover how Anomali can elevate your security posture.