Discover the key benefits of SOC Security Operations Center and how it strengthens cybersecurity by detecting, preventing, and responding to threats.
What is a SOC?
An organization’s ability to identify, respond, and prevent threats is enhanced by a security operations center (SOC), which unifies and coordinates all cybersecurity activities and technology.
An organization’s complete IT infrastructure is monitored around-the-clock by a SOC, which is sometimes pronounced “sock” and also known as an information security operations center or ISOC. Real-time security issue detection, analysis, and response are its goals. This coordination of cybersecurity tasks guarantees a proactive defense posture against cyber attacks and enables the SOC team to keep watch over the company’s networks, systems, and applications.
Additionally, the SOC chooses, manages, and keeps up the cybersecurity technologies of the company and continuously examines threat intelligence to identify methods to strengthen the security posture of the company.
When a managed security service provider (MSSP) offers managed security services (MSS) that are not on-site, a SOC is frequently a component of such services. A SOC’s primary advantage is that it integrates and organises an organization’s security system, including its security procedures, tools, and incident response. Faster threat detection, enhanced security policies and preventative measures, and quicker, more efficient, and more economical responses to security concerns are often the outcomes of this. Additionally, a SOC may boost consumer trust and make it easier and more robust for a company to comply with national, international, and industry privacy laws.
What a security operations center (SOC) does?
Three broad categories apply to SOC duties and activities.
Preparation, planning and prevention
Asset inventory
Apps, databases, servers, cloud services, endpoints, and other items inside or outside the data center must all be fully inventoried by a SOC, as must all the tools used to protect them (firewalls, antivirus/anti-malware/anti-ransomware tools, monitoring software, etc.). For this work, a lot of SOCs will employ an asset discovery tool.
Routine maintenance and preparation
The SOC carries out preventative maintenance, which includes continuously updating firewalls, allowlists, blocklists, security rules, and procedures, as well as installing software patches and updates, to optimise the efficacy of security tools and measures in place. In order to guarantee company continuity in the case of a ransomware attack, data breach, or other cybersecurity catastrophe, the SOC can also make system backups or help develop backup policies or processes.
Incident response planning
The SOC is in charge of creating the organization’s incident response plan, which outlines duties, roles, and tasks in the case of a threat or incident. It also specifies the metrics that will be used to gauge how well an incident response goes.
Regular testing
Comprehensive vulnerability assessments are carried out by the SOC team to determine each resource’s susceptibility to possible or new threats as well as the associated expenses. Additionally, penetration tests are carried out to mimic certain assaults on one or more systems. Depending on the outcomes of these tests, the team fixes or improves apps, security guidelines, best practices, and incident response strategies.
Staying current
Using information obtained from industry sources, the dark web, and social media, the SOC remains current on the newest technology and security solutions, as well as threat intelligence news and information on cyberattacks and the hackers who carry them out.
Monitoring, detection and response
Continuous, around-the-clock security monitoring
The SOC monitors computer devices, servers, system software, applications, cloud workloads, and the network 24/7 for known vulnerabilities and odd activities.
SIEM is the main monitoring, detection, and response tool for many SOCs. SIEM continuously records and compiles telemetry and warnings from network hardware and software, then examines the information to find any dangers. Extended detection and response (XDR) technology has been incorporated by several SOCs in more recent times. This technology allows for automation of incident detection and response and offers more thorough telemetry and monitoring.
Log management
Management of Logs One crucial aspect of monitoring is gathering and examining the log data produced by each network event. Even though the majority of IT departments gather log data, abnormalities that point to suspicious behaviour are revealed by analysis, which also establishes typical or baseline activity. Actually, a lot of hackers rely on the fact that businesses don’t always examine log data, which might let their malware and viruses remain on the victim’s computers for weeks or even months without being noticed. Log management is a feature of the majority of SIEM implementations.
Threat detection
Threats are ranked by severity when the SOC team separates the signals from the noise, separating the signs of real cyberthreats and hacker usage from the false positives. Artificial intelligence (AI), a component of contemporary SIEM solutions, automates these procedures and gradually “learns” from the data to become more adept at identifying questionable activities.
Incident response
The SOC takes action to prevent further harm in the event of a threat or incident. Activities may consist of:
- Root cause analysis, to identify the technological flaws that allowed hackers to get access to the system and other elements (such inadequate password management or lax policy enforcement) that had a role in the event.
- Terminating or unplugging compromised endpoints from the network.
- Either rerouting network traffic or isolating hacked regions.
- Pausing or terminating compromised processes or apps.
- Deleting corrupted or compromised files.
- Running malware or antivirus software.
- Deleting both external and internal user passwords.
Automating and expediting these and other incident responses is made possible by several XDR solutions for SOCs.
Recovery, refinement and compliance
Recovery and remediation
After a threat has been eliminated, the SOC attempts to restore the affected assets to their pre-event condition (e.g., erasing, restoring, and reconnecting discs, user devices, and other endpoints; restoring network traffic; resuming programs and processes). Making the switch to backup systems and changing login credentials and passwords may also be part of recovery in the case of a ransomware attack or data breach.
Post-mortem and refinement
The SOC makes use of any fresh information gleaned from the event to improve vulnerability management, update procedures and guidelines, choose new cybersecurity technologies, or update the incident response plan in order to stop a repeat. On a more broad scale, the SOC team may also attempt to ascertain whether the occurrence indicates a novel or evolving cybersecurity trend for which the team must be ready.
Compliance management
All applications, systems, security tools, and procedures must comply with data privacy laws like the CCPA, PCI DSS, GDPR, and HIPAA. This is the responsibility of the SOC. The SOC ensures that the necessary incident data is kept for auditing and evidentiary purposes after an event and that users, regulators, law enforcement, and other parties are informed in compliance with legislation.
Benefits of SOC
Numerous advantages are offered to organisations by a SOC, such as:
Asset protection
The danger of data breaches is reduced and unwanted access is avoided with SOCs’ proactive monitoring and quick reaction capabilities. This will prevent theft and security breaches of sensitive data, intellectual property, and vital systems.
Business continuity
SOCs guarantee continuous company operations by minimising the effect and mitigating security events. This preserves customer happiness, income sources, and productivity.
Regulatory compliance
SOCs’ implementation of efficient security measures and meticulous documentation of events and responses assist organisations in meeting industry cybersecurity standards and regulatory obligations.
Cost savings
Because a SOC can stop expensive data breaches and cyberattacks, investing in proactive security measures may save a lot of money. When outsourced, it eliminates the need to hire security experts internally and is frequently significantly less expensive than the monetary losses and reputational hazards brought on by a security event.
Customer trust
Customer and stakeholder confidence is increased when a SOC is used to demonstrate a commitment to cybersecurity.
Enhanced incident response
Because SOCs can swiftly restore regular operations and limit threats, they minimise interruptions and decrease downtime and financial losses.
Improved risk management
SOC teams are able to determine the possible weaknesses of an organisation by examining security events and patterns. Before they are taken advantage of, they may then take proactive steps to reduce them.
Proactive threat detection
Through constant network and system monitoring, SOCs are better able to detect and address security risks. By doing this, possible harm and data breaches are reduced, and organisations are able to keep ahead of a changing threat scenario.
