SIMU was presented at the 33rd BremSec-Forum in Bremen

The threat of cybercrime aimed at companies in Germany grows continuously. That is the conclusion to which the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation arrives. Security systems, such as firewalls, virus scanners, spam filters, VPN gateways are indeed used by SME but work typically isolated of each other. However, many attacks can only be identified by combining data of different systems. Even if an attack has been identified, the counteractions are often carried out too late and the attacker has already disrupted the operation of important systems or has attained sensitive information. Continuative and proactive monitoring of IT systems (clients, servers, components of networks, firewall etc.) as well as of processes and events in the network does usually not take place. So called Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions, which are developed by the research project SIMU, promise remedial measures.

The 33rd BremSec-Forum (Bremer Security-Forum) addressed the SIEM topic on Wednesday, May 14th, 2014. “SIEM solutions provide companies with the possibility of an exact risk estimation of IT systems.” With this appraisal Prof. Dr. Kai-Oliver Detken, DECOIT GmbH, introduced the IT relevant topic SIEM. A first summary with regards to manageability, efficiency and possible increase of security level for companies was drawn at the current BremSec-Forum based on the experiences made in the SIMU project, after different SIEM modules had been presented. Afterwards an open discussion took place during which participants and lecturers talked about their experiences and other topics in the field of IT security.

The BremSec-Forum was brought into being by the TZI Technologie-Zentrum Informatik und Informationstechnik, the German Association for Data Protection and Data Security (GDD) and the Siemens AG Bremen about ten years ago. Today it is conducted by the IFIT - Freies Institut für IT-Sicherheit e.V. Mail objective of the BremSecForum is to create a network of companies and public authorities in the field of IT security and to bundle IT security knowledge within the federal state Bremen and its surrounding area. Currently the BremSec community counts 60 permanent members – further increase is to be expected. The Forum takes place in cooperation with the project "eBusiness-Lotse Bremen-Oldenburg" of the WFB Bremen Economic Development GmbH funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.