CISA’s new guide will help agencies meet a November deadline for submitting cyber logging plans that need to prioritize quality, instead of just quantity.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is pushing agencies to prioritize cybersecurity data logging that allows them to embrace continuous event monitoring, threat hunting, incident response and other key capabilities.
Last week CISA released the “Logging Reference Architecture” guide. The document helps agencies implement logging changes directed by the Office of Management and Budget in a May memo, “Ensuring Effective and Efficient Agency Logging and Network Visibility to Defend Against Evolving Cyber Threats.”
In cybersecurity, logs are automated digital records created to help cyber teams detect suspicious activity and investigate IT incidents.
The new guide will help agencies as they develop logging plans that are due to OMB and CISA by Nov. 18.
In a statement on the new guide, CISA’s Acting Executive Assistant Director for Cybersecurity Chris Butera said “cyber defense begins with insight.”
“Robust logs provide the critical visibility needed to counter daily threats targeting federal systems,” Butera said. “CISA is enhancing agency logging strategies to ensure security teams can rapidly detect and respond to cyber incidents.”
Butera added that the architecture document “guides agencies away from fragmented practices, establishing a mature enterprise capability that maximizes the operational value of their data.”
CISA and OMB’s push to modernize how the federal government handles cybersecurity logging comes as agencies have made strides in the amount of logging data they retain since a 2021 memo, M-21-31.
At that time, federal cyber leaders saw a need to expand “visibility” into potential cybersecurity incidents after it was found several agencies lacked the logs necessary to investigate high-profile cases like SolarWinds.
But as mentioned in OMB’s May memo superseding that 2021 directive, “some requirements, such as the retention of vast quantities of logging data without clear utility, proved neither operationally feasible nor cost-effective for most agencies.”
CISA’s new Logging Reference Architecture says agencies should adopt log retention strategies that “balance cost, performance, and operational needs while ensuring critical evidence remains available for investigations and digital forensics.”
“Retention alone is not enough if the right data cannot be searched within the time window required for monitoring, threat hunting, and routine investigation,” CISA’s guide states. “Conversely, keeping all telemetry in high cost, long-term operational storage is often unnecessary and unsustainable.”
The document also provides “operational checklists” to help agencies design their logging approaches around “security outcomes,” including continuous event monitoring, threat hunting, incident response and digital forensics.
And the guide informs agency decisions on integrating artificial intelligence into logging processes.
John Harmon, regional vice president of cyber solutions for Global Public Sector at Elastic, said CISA’s guide will help agencies “build proper logging plans to match the modern threat reality and ensure agencies focus on the logs that provide measurable security benefits.”
“The security threat landscape has evolved drastically since M-21-31 – adversaries are faster, more automated, and increasingly using AI-driven tools,” Harmon said. “By combining scalable data ingestion, fast search, security analytics, and flexible data retention, federal agencies can develop logging plans that improve security operations and provide the data foundation for [continuous event monitoring] and [threat-hunting, investigation, response, and forensics] objectives.”
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