SentryWire for OMB M-21-31

SentryWire delivers packet-level evidence across on-prem, hybrid, and cloud environments to support OMB M-21-31 logging, audit validation, and incident investigation. With full-fidelity data and long-term retention, agencies can confidently progress through the M-21-31 maturity model.

EXPLORE THE PLATFORM
EXPLORE THE PLATFORM

Understanding the Requirements of OMB M-21-31

Federal agencies are under growing pressure to demonstrate compliance with OMB M-21-31, the government’s mandate for event-log management and long-term data retention. SentryWire helps agencies meet these requirements by providing complete, audit-grade packet data that supports accurate investigations, log validation, and incident reconstruction.

Aligned with NIST SP 800-92 and CISA guidance, SentryWire enables the visibility, auditability, and maturity progression outlined in the M-21-31 Event Log Management Maturity Model (EL1 through EL3).

SentryWire for OMB M-21-31 Compliance

Achieving compliance under OMB M-21-31 requires more than collecting event logs. It demands the ability to trace incidents with complete, verifiable data. Traditional log aggregators provide summaries of activity, but they often lack the fidelity to determine what actually occurred.

SentryWire closes this gap with full-packet capture (FPC). Recording every packet that crosses the network creates a definitive record for audits, investigations, and threat detection. This data can be searched, replayed, and correlated with event logs, giving agencies complete visibility and traceability over their environments.

Key compliance alignments include:

  • Retention: Long-term storage of packet-level traffic for months or years with verified integrity.

  • Encryption: Secure data encryption at rest and in transit to meet Appendix A requirements, ensuring compliance with federal standards for cryptographic protection.

  • Auditability: Role-based access control, change tracking, and immutable storage architecture that preserves evidentiary value.

  • Traceability: Packet indexing and correlation with SIEM events to reconstruct incidents with precision.

These capabilities support agency progress through every Maturity Level. At EL1, SentryWire provides consistent event capture and timestamp standardization. At EL2, it enhances monitoring and automates incident triage. At EL3, it integrates with behavioral analytics and SOAR workflows, enabling advanced automation and continuous monitoring through seamless data export and integration.

Full-Packet Capture for Visibility and Proof

Each packet represents a piece of evidence. SentryWire records them all at line rate, up to 1 Tbps, without loss of fidelity. This high-performance architecture ensures that even during the busiest network periods, data remains complete.

Analysts can replay traffic, examine payloads, and reconstruct entire sessions. When questions arise about how a compromise occurred or when an intruder gained access, agencies can rely on factual, packet-level evidence rather than partial log data.

Key Capabilities and Advantages

Real-Time Network Insight

SentryWire provides instant visibility into all network transactions. Security teams can identify anomalies as they occur, reducing mean-time-to-detect and improving overall situational awareness.

Forensic Depth

Full packet capture provides federal SOC teams with ground-truth network evidence, enabling complete reconstruction of attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).

Unlike logs or alerts that can be evaded or tampered with, captured packets preserve the actual network traffic - critical for attribution, incident validation, and meeting federal investigation and prosecution requirements.

Correlation and Context

Packet data is correlated with log events to build a complete narrative of activity. This eliminates blind spots and minimizes false conclusions during audits or post-incident reviews.

Enhanced Efficiency and Governance

Centralized packet visibility supports consistent reporting across all systems.

Packet capture eliminates the investigative guesswork that slows SOC teams. Instead of correlating incomplete logs or chasing false positives, analysts have definitive network evidence to quickly confirm or dismiss threats.

This ground-truth data streamlines everything from initial triage to final reporting - critical when teams must meet strict deadlines and support mission critical objectives.

Scalability Across Environments

Federal networks are complex, spanning on-premises data centers, hybrid clouds, and remote facilities. SentryWire’s flexible architecture allows rapid scaling, supporting packet capture across hybrid and cloud environments without adding complexity or hardware overhead, ensuring agencies meet evolving OMB M-21-31 requirements.

Its architecture supports both physical and virtual deployments, allowing agencies to extend packet capture to any segment of their network without additional hardware complexity.

Integration with Security Ecosystems

SentryWire works alongside existing infrastructure. It exports metadata and integrates with platforms such as Splunk, Elasticsearch, Cribl, and Chronicle, allowing analysts to perform advanced correlation and alerting without changing workflows.

This interoperability protects existing investments and simplifies technology modernization under OMB M-21-31.

Expanded Analytical Context

SentryWire includes advanced analytic features, such as machine-learning modules that integrate with existing tools to identify patterns of anomalous user behavior and network activity.

Administrators can visualize this data through dashboards or integrate it into existing analytics pipelines for broader situational intelligence.


How SentryWire Supports Maturity Progression

EL1 – Foundational Visibility

At this level, agencies establish consistent log formats and begin centralizing storage.

SentryWire assists by standardizing packet capture and ensuring synchronized timestamps across all sources. This foundational consistency enables faster triage and accurate correlation across systems.

EL2 – Enhanced Monitoring and Security Posture

SentryWire's packet capture directly fulfills EL2's mandate for advanced network visibility by providing the deep traffic inspection and lateral movement detection that log-based systems miss.

Federal SOC teams can retroactively analyze captured packets to uncover previously unknown compromise indicators, validate threat hunting hypotheses, and provide the definitive evidence trail that OMB M-21-31 demands for understanding the full scope of incidents.

EL3 – Advanced Analytics and Automation

At the most advanced level, agencies leverage behavioral analytics, machine learning, and SOAR capabilities to predict and mitigate threats automatically.

SentryWire’s architecture enables this transition by exporting packet metadata to orchestration platforms and feeding context into automated playbooks.

This level of maturity fulfills the continuous-monitoring objectives of OMB M-21-31 and positions agencies for future zero-trust and AI-driven mandates.

Why Federal Agencies Choose SentryWire

  • SentryWire is built specifically for mission networks where accuracy and uptime are critical.

    Its hardware and software architecture deliver line-rate, lossless packet capture while maintaining affordability, often at less than half the cost of legacy systems.

    The platform is already trusted by defense and civilian agencies for long-term packet storage, forensic analysis, and audit readiness.


  • Government technology investments must remain viable over time. SentryWire’s open architecture ensures long-term compatibility with emerging tools and compliance updates. Its flexible storage tiers and compression options allow agencies to retain historical data longer and with less budget.

  • SentryWire continuously aligns with evolving federal guidance. As CISA and DHS expand frameworks around automation, zero-trust, and continuous diagnostic & mitigation (CDM), SentryWire’s roadmap ensures agencies remain ahead of the curve. This forward-thinking approach transforms compliance from a recurring challenge into a sustainable capability.architecture aggregates packet data from offshore platforms, pipelines, and processing facilities into unified dashboards. Global operators maintain consistent security standards across all sites while local teams retain granular visibility for site-specific troubleshooting. This dual-layer approach supports both corporate compliance requirements and operational excellence.


  • Compliance is not only a technical requirement; it is a matter of public trust. Agencies that can demonstrate evidence-based accountability gain credibility with oversight bodies and the citizens they serve. SentryWire’s tamper-proof storage and detailed access auditing provide the transparency necessary to maintain that trust.

  • Traditional forensic and logging systems often require separate storage, analytics, and integration layers. SentryWire consolidates these functions, lowering total cost of ownership.

    Its compression engine reduces storage needs without sacrificing fidelity, and its modular design extends hardware life cycles, reducing replacement and maintenance costs.


  • SentryWire’s deployment teams have extensive experience within federal and defense environments. From initial planning to continuous optimization, agencies receive implementation guidance, documentation support, and training tailored to their mission.

    This service model ensures each deployment aligns with compliance schedules and reporting obligations under OMB M-21-31.

Strengthen Your M-21-31 Compliance Strategy

Agencies preparing for upcoming compliance reviews should evaluate whether their event-log programs provide complete visibility and forensic reliability. SentryWire delivers both through its unified approach to packet capture, retention, and analytics.

SentryWire provides full packet capture solutions designed for performance, scalability, and secure long-term retention. See how our platform overcomes traditional limitations and simplifies compliance. Request your free demo today.

FAQs

  • OMB M-21-31 is the Office of Management and Budget memorandum that defines federal requirements for event-log management, retention, and analysis. It supports Executive Order 14028 on improving national cybersecurity and requires agencies to implement standardized, auditable log practices.

  • EO 14028, signed in May 2021, directed federal agencies to modernize cybersecurity practices after the SolarWinds compromise and explicitly identified inadequate logging as a critical investigative gap. OMB M-21-31 was issued three months later as the direct operational response — establishing the event log maturity model (EL1–EL3), defining retention requirements, and setting compliance timelines to fulfill EO 14028's mandate.

    • EL1 (Essential): Establish consistent formats and centralized collection.

    • EL2 (Intermediate): Implement encryption, real-time monitoring, and automated triage.

    • EL3 (Advanced): Leverage behavior analytics, machine learning, and SOAR integration for continuous monitoring.

  • EL1 requires 12 months of retention with 30 days of active, queryable access. EL2 requires 18 months with 60 days hot. EL3 — required for high-impact systems — requires 30 months with 12 months continuously accessible. For network packet data, longer retention is recommended since APT intrusions often go undetected for months before an investigation begins.

  • M-21-31 Appendix A requires four categories: network logs (firewall, DNS, proxy, VPN), endpoint logs (process execution, authentication, privilege use), cloud and application logs (API calls, access events, config changes), and security tool outputs (IDS/IPS, EDR, SIEM). All logs must be complete, tamper-resistant, and time-synchronized. Full packet capture complements these by preserving the underlying traffic that logs summarize.

  • M-21-31 directly applies to federal civilian executive branch agencies. However, contractors that operate federal systems or process federal data are typically required to meet equivalent standards through contract terms, FedRAMP requirements, and agency-specific security controls. Service providers seeking or maintaining an Authorization to Operate (ATO) should expect M-21-31-aligned logging requirements as a standard condition.

  • M-21-31 is enforced through FISMA reporting cycles, OMB budget oversight, and CISA coordination. Non-compliance results in adverse FISMA assessment findings reported to Congress, potential IT budget restrictions, and heightened inspector general scrutiny. If a security incident occurs where inadequate logging hampered the investigation, agency leadership faces significant exposure before oversight bodies including the GAO.

  • Full packet capture supports M-21-31 by providing the complete, tamper-resistant network evidence that log aggregators alone can't deliver. It addresses M-21-31's core requirements — long-term retention, traceability through packet indexing, and EL3 automation through SOAR integration. SentryWire is built for federal environments including on-premises, hybrid, and air-gapped deployments, with audit-ready documentation for M-21-31 assessments.

  • Packet data integrates with SIEM platforms by providing the network evidence behind each alert — analysts pivot from a SIEM alert directly to the associated packets for confirmation. For SOAR, packet retrieval can be triggered automatically as part of investigation playbooks, supporting M-21-31's EL3 automation requirements. SentryWire integrates with Splunk, Elastic, Chronicle, and Cortex xSOAR via standard APIs.

  • Full-packet capture records both headers and payloads, allowing investigators to recreate sessions, confirm data movement, and verify threat behavior — something traditional logs cannot provide.

See Full Packet Capture in Action

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