Agentless collection – other techniques
Besides WEC, many other agent-free collection techniques and protocols exist. However, we have decided to only explain Syslog here as it is the most well-known protocol and because most security solutions and tools allow us to configure log forwarding using this solution.
Syslog
The name syslog refers to a protocol that is used to send and centralize events, but it is also a specific log format and software. Developed in the 80s, it is now used in most Unix environments but also on many other systems and solutions, including security solutions such as antivirus and firewalls, which allow us to send events using the syslog protocols. This protocol uses port 514
on UDP by default to forward logs to a centralized repository. The latter can be a dedicated syslog server, a SIEM, or a log processing server, as we will see later in this chapter.
The Syslog protocol and format are both defined in RFC5424
, which standardizes the entire...