Case Study: Federal Agency M-21-31 Readiness

Project Scope: Enterprise SIEM Optimization & Audit Defense

Client Profile: Cabinet-level Federal Agency

Timeline: 90-Day Compliance Sprint

The Problem (The "Chaos")

The agency was facing a mandate to achieve EL3 maturity under M-21-31 but was hamstrung by a legacy Splunk environment that was both over-budget and under-performing. Over 30% of their daily ingest consisted of "dark data"—logs being paid for but never used for detection. Audit readiness was managed via manual spreadsheets, making evidence collection for the IG a weeks-long process.

The Solution (The "Signal")

Signal Forge implemented a Visibility-First Engineering strategy. We deployed a centralized data-routing layer to filter non-essential headers at the edge, freeing up significant license headroom. We then mapped every log source directly to M-21-31 logging requirements and MITRE ATT&CK sub-techniques. Finally, we built a custom "Compliance Dashboard" that automatically generated the artifacts required by the OMB, transforming audit prep from a manual nightmare into a real-time capability.

The Impact (The "Result")

• Compliance: Achieved 100% EL1 and EL2 logging coverage within the first 60 days.
• Efficiency: Identified and eliminated 4.5TB of daily redundant ingest, saving the agency an estimated $220k/year in licensing.
• Audit Readiness: Reduced evidence collection time from 14 days to < 4 hours via automated reporting artifacts.