Convert SYSLOG Events to CEF format

Step by step guide to convert SYSLOG log format to CEF format using python

Tamir Suliman
5 min readJun 20, 2023
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

If you found the article valuable and wish to offer a gesture of encouragement:

👏 Give the article 50 claps

💻 Follow me

Why

Monitoring and analyzing data to acquire insights and spot potential security issues becomes more crucial as firms gather more data. To accomplish this, enterprises frequently process and analyze log data using log management systems SIEM tools and Common Event Format (CEF). In this article, we will discuss how to convert SYSLOG logs format to CEF format using python.

The Configuration

CEF is a standardized log format that allows log management systems to effectively process and store logs from a variety of security and network devices. The CEF format comprises numerous key-value pairs that provide vital information about the log event. The structure of a CEF log message is fairly simple and is as follows:

CEF:Version|Device Vendor|Device Product|Device Version|Signature ID|Name|Severity|[Extension Key]=[Value] ..

The process of converting from SYSLOG to CEF entails parsing the data to extract the relevant fields such as…

--

--

Tamir Suliman

Writer, Engineer, Cyber security enthusiast ,PhD. Candidate & 4 Open Source write about my day to day experience in Software Data, and Engineering.