A Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system is the correct solution as it is specifically designed to meet both of the administrator's requirements. The "Security Information Management" (SIM) aspect addresses the need to gather and aggregate log data from various sources into a single, centralized location for storage and analysis. The "Security Event Management" (SEM) component provides real-time monitoring, analysis, and, most importantly, the correlation of disparate events to identify potential security threats. This correlation capability allows the system to generate alerts for incidents that would not be apparent from examining individual log entries, directly fulfilling the second requirement.

A. Syslog: Syslog is a standard protocol for forwarding log messages. While it facilitates the centralization of logs, it does not inherently include the correlation or advanced alerting capabilities required by the administrator.

B. Event log monitoring: This is a generic process of observing logs for specific events. It lacks the sophisticated, cross-source data correlation and automated alerting engine that is a core feature of a SIEM.

C. Log management: This term broadly covers the collection, storage, and basic analysis of log data. It is a prerequisite for a SIEM but does not necessarily include the advanced, security-focused correlation and real-time alerting functions.

1. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-92

"Guide to Computer Security Log Management."

Reference: Section 2.3

"Log Management Infrastructures

" Page 2-6.

Quote/Paraphrase: The document explains that Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are used to provide a central view of security and perform functions such as "analyzing log data in near real-time to identify events of interest" and "correlating log data from multiple sources." This directly supports the selection of SIEM for both aggregation and correlation.

2. Bhatt

S.

Manadhata

P. K.

& Zomlot

L. (2014). "The Operational Role of a SIEM." 2014 IEEE Security and Privacy Workshops.

Reference: Section II.A

"SIEM Architecture

" Page 66.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/SPW.2014.17

Quote/Paraphrase: The paper defines a SIEM's core architecture as having components for log collection/aggregation and a correlation engine. It states

"The correlation engine is the brain of the SIEM... It uses a set of rules to analyze the events from different sources to identify relationships between them." This confirms a SIEM's primary function is to correlate data to generate alerts.

3. Carnegie Mellon University

Software Engineering Institute. "Common Sense Guide to Mitigating Insider Threats

4th Edition."

Reference: Practice 15: "Deploy a SIEM to Log

Monitor

and Audit Employee Actions

" Page 101.

Quote/Paraphrase: This guide recommends implementing a SIEM to "aggregate and correlate logs from various sources" and "provide a complete picture of activity on a system or network." It explicitly identifies SIEM as the tool for both log aggregation and correlation for security purposes.