→ The Executive Blind Spot 👨‍💼

On the surface, your SIEM dashboard may look reassuring: green checkmarks, logs streaming in, and alerts firing when they should. The SOC feels confident. But what happens if the adversary disables the cameras before making a move?

Attackers today don’t just break in—they erase their footprints. They tamper with logs, silence alerts, and vanish into the noise. The result? A breach that doesn’t look like a breach until it’s too late.

Think about the last time you reviewed your logging policy. Did you ask not only what’s being logged but also how resilient those logs are against tampering?

→ Why It Matters (Business Impact)

When logs are missing, leaders lose visibility. That’s when business risk multiplies:

• Ransomware spreads quietly when logging is disabled before encryption starts.

• Audit trails vanish, leaving compliance teams with awkward gaps to explain to regulators.

• Incident response becomes guesswork, not science, when forensic breadcrumbs are wiped out.

• Trust erodes with boards and customers who expect transparency.

Logging isn’t just about catching attackers in the act; it’s about protecting the organization’s credibility. Strong logs turn incidents into documented lessons. Weak logs turn them into existential threats.

→ GRC X Offensive Security (Collaboration Angle)

This is where governance and offense sharpen each other:

• GRC ensures accountability → policies demand log retention, auditability, and standards.

• Offensive security provides reality checks → red teams simulate attackers who disable, clear, or manipulate logs.

Together, they deliver a powerful message to leadership: logging is not “compliance theater.” It’s operational resilience.

→ Compliance Mapping (Controls & Evidence)

Logging ties directly into major frameworks:

• ISO 27001:2022 → Annex A.12.4 (Logging and monitoring), A.12.1 (Network management)

• SOC 2 → Security principle (activity monitoring)

• NIST 800-53 → AU-2 (Audit events), AU-6 (Review), IR-4 (Incident handling)

• CIS Controls → #8 (Audit log management), #6 (Access control)

Auditors look for:

• Documented log retention policies

• Monitoring dashboards with real-time event correlation

• Incident response reports showing forensic use of logs

• Reviews proving log integrity and tamper protection

→ Actionable Playbook (Practical Steps)

Here’s how to harden your logging practice against attackers who thrive in the dark:

1. Centralize and Secure → Forward logs into tamper-evident SIEM platforms with strict RBAC.

2. Monitor the Monitors → Generate alerts for stopped logging, cleared event logs, or disabled audit policies.

3. Test Log Integrity → Include log evasion in red team or purple team exercises.

4. Automate Response → Trigger escalations when critical systems stop sending logs.

5. Educate Defenders → Train SOC analysts to spot log manipulation and anti-forensics.

→ Leadership Lens (Executive Takeaways)

For executives, logging is not a technical checkbox; it’s a trust signal. Here’s what leaders can drive:

• Sponsor standardization of log practices across all business units.

• Position monitoring as business intelligence, not just compliance overhead.

• Measure coverage with simple KPIs:
  What percentage of our critical assets are backed by tamper-evident logging?

→ Call-to-Action

Logging is like transparency in a relationship. It builds trust when present and breeds suspicion when absent. Attackers may try to erase the story, but with resilient monitoring, they can’t erase their presence.

Every control tells a story. Share yours and continue the dialogue with me on LinkedIn.