A Graph Database-Based Approach to Analyze Network Log Files

Network log files from different sources often need to be analyzed in order to facilitate a more accurate assessment of the cyber threat severity. For example, using command line tools, any log file can be reviewed only in isolation. While using a log management system allows for searching across different log files, the relationship(s) between different network activities may not be easy to establish from the analysis of these different log files. We can use relational databases to establish these relationships, for example using complex database queries involving multiple join operations to link the tables. In recent years, there has been a trend of using graph databases to manage data for semantic queries (e.g. importing a fixed amount of log data for subsequent analysis). Hence, in this paper, we propose a new approach to analyze network log files, by using the graph database. Specifically, we posit the importance of constantly monitoring log files for new entries for immediate processed and analysis, and their results imported into the graph database. To facilitate the evaluation of our proposed approach, we use the Zeek network security monitor system to produce log files from monitored network traffic in real-time. We then explain how graph databases can be used to analyze network log files in near-real time within a network security-monitoring environment. Findings from our research demonstrate the utility of graph data in analyzing log data.