Identify and Monitor Events

Graylog provides integrated event detection and monitoring capabilities designed to help you identify suspicious behaviors and trigger alerts that align with your security operations.

This section of the documentation explains how events, correlations, and alerts work together to form the foundation of proactive threat detection and incident response in Graylog. You'll learn how to configure event conditions, correlate multiple activities into larger incident patterns, and trigger timely alerts to keep your security operations informed and responsive.

Events

Events represent specific circumstances in your environment that signal a deviation from normal behavior. These could include changes to firewall policies, failed login attempts from blacklisted IP addresses, or any other condition that may indicate a potential threat or noteworthy operational change.

In Graylog, you can define the precise parameters that constitute an event based on your incoming log data. Once an event is detected—when log messages match the defined criteria—Graylog automatically generates a structured event object that can be used for alerting, correlation, and further analysis.

Correlation Events

While individual events provide important insights, many security incidents reveal themselves through patterns of related activity. Graylog’s correlation engine allows you to define relationships between multiple events over time, helping you uncover complex or coordinated behaviors that may otherwise go unnoticed.

Correlation rules enable you to track sequences or combinations of events—such as repeated failed logins followed by a successful one, or a change in user privileges shortly before system access from a new location.

Alerts

Alerts are triggered based on event conditions and are used to notify teams of potential threats, misconfigurations, or performance issues. Graylog supports flexible alert definitions, multiple alert types (email, webhooks, SIEM integrations), and alert severity tagging.