Implementing Security Monitoring with Datadog

When to Use

• Deploying Cloud SIEM to detect real-time threats across cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Creating custom detection rules for attacker techniques, credential abuse, or anomalous behavior
• Enabling Workload Protection (CSM Threats) to monitor file, process, and network activity on hosts and containers
• Meeting compliance requirements (PCI-DSS, SOC 2, HIPAA) that mandate centralized log monitoring and alerting
• Building security dashboards to provide SOC visibility into threat signals, investigation context, and response metrics

Do not use for endpoint-only monitoring without cloud infrastructure; use a dedicated EDR solution for purely on-premises endpoint detection.

Prerequisites

• Datadog account with Security Monitoring (Cloud SIEM) and/or Cloud Security Management enabled
• Datadog API Key and Application Key from Organization Settings > API Keys
• Datadog Agent v7+ installed on hosts/containers that generate security-relevant logs
• Log sources configured for ingestion: AWS CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, GuardDuty, Azure Activity Logs, GCP Audit Logs, or on-host logs (auth.log, syslog, Windows Security Events)
• Python 3.9+ with datadog-api-client library for programmatic rule management