Intelligence services are the silent guardians of state security. Thanks to their vast networks of informants and cutting-edge surveillance technologies, they infiltrate organizations, intercept communications, and meticulously analyze this data. Their goal is to anticipate any terrorist threat, thwart foreign espionage, and preserve the country's stability.
This notion of proactive protection against invisible threats can be transposed to the world of IT. Companies today are targeted by sophisticated cybercrime, whether by hackers, digital mafias, or industrial espionage. Faced with these furtive attacks circulating on the web, they must equip themselves with a response equal to the stakes.
Let's take the analogy of a private property to protect. A wealthy businessman would invest in bodyguards, thermal cameras detecting any intruder, reinforced safes. In our case, logging and monitoring constitute the digital equivalent of an optimized security system.
Logging consists of a real-time recording of all the events in the IT system in audit logs that can be consulted later. Whether it's user connections, database queries, or network traffic, each interaction is scrupulously recorded with abundant technical details (IP addresses, protocols, etc.). In the event of a detected breach, these digital traces make it possible to replay the sequence of events and identify the chain of events that led to the incident. This allows the breach to be plugged and the robustness of the system to be improved.
Monitoring takes this proactive surveillance logic even further. Dedicated solutions analyze incoming and outgoing data flows in real time, searching for statistical anomalies that may reveal a potential cyberattack. For example, these tools can detect unusually frequent connection attempts to a server, interpreted as an intrusion attempt. Alerts are then automatically generated to block the attack before it can cause damage.
As we can see, logging and monitoring are two sides of the same coin in a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. The first provides a posteriori traceability in the event of an incident, the second ensures proactive monitoring to prevent them. Together, they provide optimal protection against all types of digital attacks. At a time when cybersecurity has become the number one strategic issue for companies, such defense mechanisms are essential in the face of the ever-changing threats.