What's A Security Operations Center ?
A security operations center (SOC) – sometimes called an information security operations center, or ISOC – is an in-house or outsourced team of IT security professionals that monitors an organization’s entire IT infrastructure, 24/7, to detect cybersecurity events in real time and address them as quickly and effectively as possible.
The SOC is responsible for sifting, operating, and maintaining an organization's cybersecurity technology, and continuously analyzes threat data to find ways to improve the organization's security posture.
The main advantage of operating or outsourcing an SOC is that it unifies and aligns an organization's security tools, practices, and responses to security incidents. This often results in improved preventive measures and security policies, faster threat detection, and faster, more effective, and more cost-effective responses to security threats. SOCs can also improve customer confidence and simplify and enhance an organization's compliance with industry, national and global privacy regulations.
Cyberattacks are getting more sophisticated every year, yet SOCs are monitored by security experts with a wealth of knowledge and skills.
As the level of security measures to protect information assets increases, it leads to a reduction in risk.
Additionally, enhancing data protection by installing a SOC protects not only threat vulnerabilities but also customer trust.
Prepare, Plan and Prevent
Asset list. The SOC needs to maintain an exhaustive list of everything that needs to be protected in and out of the data center (such as applications, databases, servers, cloud services, endpoints, etc.) and all the tools (firewalls, antiviruses) that protect that content /anti-malware/anti-ransomware tools, monitoring software, etc.). Many SOCs employ asset discovery solutions to handle this task.
Routine maintenance and preparation. To maximize the effectiveness of existing security tools and measures, the SOC performs preventive maintenance, such as applying software patches and upgrades, and continually updates firewalls, whitelists and blacklists, and security policies and procedures. The SOC also creates system backups or assists in the creation of backup policies or procedures to ensure business continuity in the event of a data breach, ransomware attack, or other cybersecurity incident.
Incident Response Plan. The SOC is responsible for developing the organization's incident response plan, which defines the activities, roles, responsibilities, and metrics to measure the success of any incident response when a threat or incident occurs.
Test regularly. The SOC team will perform a comprehensive vulnerability assessment to determine the potential threat vulnerabilities and associated costs for each resource. It will also perform penetration tests to simulate specific attacks on another system. Based on the results of these tests, teams patch or tune applications, security policies, best practices, and incident response plans.
Stay up-to-date on what's going on. SOCs stay informed of the latest security solutions and technologies, as well as the latest threat intelligence, such as news and information gathered from social media, industry sources, and the dark web about cyberattacks and the hackers who carry them out.
Monitor, Detect and Respond
Continuous, 24/7 security monitoring. SOC monitors the entire extended IT infrastructure - applications, servers, system software, computing devices, cloud workloads, networks - 7x24x365 for signs of known vulnerabilities and any suspicious activity.
For many SOCs, the core monitoring, detection, and response technology is Security Information and Event Management, or SIEM. SIEM monitors and aggregates alerts and telemetry data from software and hardware on the network in real time, then analyzes the data to identify potential threats. More recently, some SOCs have also adopted Extended Detection and Response (XDR) technology, which provides more detailed telemetry and monitoring, as well as the ability to automate incident detection and response.
For many SOCs, core monitoring, detection, and response technologies fall under the umbrella of security information and event management (or SIEM). SIEM monitors and aggregates alerts and telemetry data from software and hardware on the network in real time, then analyzes the data to identify potential threats. More recently, some SOCs have also adopted Extended Detection and Response (XDR) technology, which provides more detailed telemetry and monitoring data and the ability to automate incident detection and response.
Recovery, Improvement and Compliance
recovery and remediation. Once the incident is contained, the SOC neutralizes the threat and then restores the affected assets to their pre-incident state (e.g. wipe, restore and reconnect disks, end-user devices and other endpoints; resume network traffic; restart applications and process). In the event of a data breach or ransomware attack, the recovery process may also involve switching to a backup system, as well as resetting passwords and authentication credentials.
Post-mortem analysis and improvement. To prevent an incident from recurring, the SOC leverages any new intelligence gained from the incident to better address vulnerabilities, update processes and policies, select new cybersecurity tools, or revise incident response plans. At a higher level, the SOC team may also be trying to determine whether this event signifies a new or changing cybersecurity trend that the team needs to prepare for.
Compliance management. The SOC's role is to ensure that all applications, systems and security tools and processes comply with data privacy regulations.
Benefits of having a Security Operations Center SOC
The main advantage of having a SOC is to enhance security incident discovery by constantly sifting and examining data activity. By assessing this activity in the corporate network, the Security Operations Center team is critical to ensuring timely detection and response to security incidents. The 24/7 screening provided by the SOC provides organizations with the benefit of preventing incidents and outages, regardless of their source, timing or type of attack. Verizon's annual Data Breach Investigations Report fully recognizes the gap between when a hack was compromised and when an organization was discovered. Having a security operations center helps companies close this vulnerability and stay on top of threats in the surrounding environment.
What are the needs of a Security Operations Center SOC?
Security Operations Center Needs
A Security Operations Center is needed for a number of reasons. For example, actual discovery of malicious network and system activity is required. The average US company takes 206 days to detect a vulnerability, and you're unlikely to wait that long. You want to know as soon as possible to reduce the impact of a breach. A SOC is also needed to identify threats so you can adjust defenses before they hit you. The responsiveness of the hardware and software resources running on the network so that you are aware of threats to them is also one of the requirements of the SOC. Additionally, the Security Operations Center facilitates log management, allowing you and any authorities to conduct extensive forensics if you do suffer an incident or breach.
These are the main purposes you want to achieve in the Security Operations Center, along with other purposes like compliance screening. It hardly needs to be pointed out that they are all very critical functions that can protect your company from malicious attacks.
How to build a good security operations center SOC?
How to build a good security operations center SOC?
Here are 5 key ways to help build a good SOC:
- Cutting-edge technology, providing experts with identification capabilities and data processing capabilities.
- Training to understand stress and the tools at their disposal. It should be remembered that threat actors will evolve, and informal and formal training must continue to maintain skills.
- A way to measure how well they are doing. Only focusing on time to resolve issues motivates experts to shut down alerts as quickly as possible while focusing on more meaningful metrics such as time to manage threats, support focus on quality and eliminate threats before they cause significant damage to the business.
- The power to act quickly to threaten. Many times, the SOC does not have the ability to affect the IT infrastructure, which causes threats to remain active in the setup for longer than necessary. With the proper permissions, the Security Operations Center can greatly reduce the impact of threats.
- Effective people management confirms that experts have the tools they need to be successful today, as well as a path to creating added value for the organization as they mature into professionals.
BROCENT Security Operation Center SOC
To effectively manage a best-in-class team, SOC managers need leadership, inspirational skills, and proficient IT security knowledge. Team members are responsible for understanding their roles and responsibilities. Building and working with SOCs effectively depends on people, programs, high-end tools, and cutting-edge technology. The Security Operations Center takes a holistic approach to information security. This tactic is critical in a world where cyberattacks overwhelm organizations of all sizes on an almost daily basis using highly diverse attack paths.
Please choose our BROCENT team