Event Severity Values

Common Event Grammar › Normalizing and Categorizing Events › Event Severity Values

Event Severity Values

The assignment is based on general security principles and best practices. For example, an action that fails is commonly considered more severe than a successful one from a security implication point of view. The following table shows the value, name and explanation of the eight severity levels. A detailed list of severity level assignment is at appendix A.

Value	Name	Description
0	Unknown	Unknown Events Events Not Mapped to CEG Unclassified
1	Debug	Message that appears during debugging only Events in non-production environment
2	Information	General System Operation Information General Security Related Information Notice
3	Warning	Unusual Changes to System/Function/Security Normal but Significant Condition Failed Operations Degraded Performance
4	Minor_Impact	Minor Impact to System/Function Minor Impact to Security
5	Major_Impact	Major Impact to System/Function Major Impact to Security
6	Critical	Immediate Action Required Likely Security Breach
7	Fatal	System Unusable/Down High Possibility of Security Breach Non Recoverable Problems

Severity Level 0 and Level 1 are at present not being assigned to any of the existing CEG event action and are reserved for future use. For the rest of the severity levels, the following guidelines are followed:

Severity Level 2:

Assign to normal system operation.
Security related events with a Success result.

Severity Level 3:

Assign to normal system operation or security related event actions with a Failure result.
Assign to unusual / infrequent system operation or security related events with a Success result.

Severity Level 4:

Mainly application and system management actions that impact other systems or multiple functions.
Events that warrant a higher level of attention than warning.
Minor Error condition.

Severity Level 5:

Comparatively less critical events.
Major Error condition.

Severity Level 6:

Assign to high security implication areas and issues that need immediate attention or fix, such as Antivirus activities, activity log and physical security.

Severity Level 7:

Assign to system shutdown events.

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