Fine-Tuning Small Language Models for Solution-Oriented Windows Event Log Analysis

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Akhtar, Siraaj, Khan, Saad, Parkinson, Simon
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Akhtar, Siraaj
Khan, Saad
Parkinson, Simon
author_facet Akhtar, Siraaj
Khan, Saad
Parkinson, Simon
contents Large language models (LLMs) have shown promise for event log analysis, but their high computational requirements, reliance on cloud infrastructure, and security concerns limit practical deployment. In addition, most existing approaches focus only on the identification of the problem and do not provide actionable remediation. Small language models (SLMs) present a light-weight alternative that can be fine-tuned for a specific purpose and hosted locally. This paper investigates whether SLMs, when fine-tuned for a specific task, can serve as a practical alternative for event log analysis while also generating solutions. We first create a large-scale synthetic Windows event log dataset that contains remediation actions using a high-performing LLM. We then fine-tune multiple SLMs and LLMs using the LoRA parameter-efficient fine-tuning technique and evaluate their performance by comparing with expert assessment. The results show that the dataset accurately reflects real-world scenarios and that fine-tuned SLMs consistently outperform LLMs in identifying issues and providing relevant remediation, while requiring fewer computational resources.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_06330
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Fine-Tuning Small Language Models for Solution-Oriented Windows Event Log Analysis
Akhtar, Siraaj
Khan, Saad
Parkinson, Simon
Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
Large language models (LLMs) have shown promise for event log analysis, but their high computational requirements, reliance on cloud infrastructure, and security concerns limit practical deployment. In addition, most existing approaches focus only on the identification of the problem and do not provide actionable remediation. Small language models (SLMs) present a light-weight alternative that can be fine-tuned for a specific purpose and hosted locally. This paper investigates whether SLMs, when fine-tuned for a specific task, can serve as a practical alternative for event log analysis while also generating solutions. We first create a large-scale synthetic Windows event log dataset that contains remediation actions using a high-performing LLM. We then fine-tune multiple SLMs and LLMs using the LoRA parameter-efficient fine-tuning technique and evaluate their performance by comparing with expert assessment. The results show that the dataset accurately reflects real-world scenarios and that fine-tuned SLMs consistently outperform LLMs in identifying issues and providing relevant remediation, while requiring fewer computational resources.
title Fine-Tuning Small Language Models for Solution-Oriented Windows Event Log Analysis
topic Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06330