Enterprise Security Operation Center (SOC) – things you should know
Today’s discussion topic is related to day-to-day security operations for an Enterprise. How enterprise monitoring threats round the clock (i.e., 24x7x365), detecting and responding to cybersecurity threats.
In recent times, SOC has been evolving significantly, with reference to emerging several threats and sophisticated cyber attacks. It helps protect against a wide range of cyber threats, i.e., any kind of data breach or malware attack including ransomware, phishing attacks etc.
A Security Operation Center (SOC) is very important for any enterprise to manage overall cybersecurity threats. Modern SOC is more proactive and driven using intelligence feed from various data sources.
Let’s explore here in detail to understand more about SOC….excited to know?
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What is Security Operation Center (SOC) for an Enterprise?
The Enterprise Security Operation Centre (SOC) is a team of security professionals, responsible for monitoring and managing the security posture of the organization.
SOC operates round the clock to defend against cyber threats. It uses a variety of security tools and technologies to collect, analyze, and respond to the identified threats.
SOC plays a critical role in protecting against cyber attacks. Approach to detect threats at an early stage, so preventive action can be taken accordingly.
Key Components involved in building an effective SOC for an Enterprise
To make the Enterprise SOC program successful in any organization, each of these three components has a significant role. Let’s see what are three components we are referring to here
- People – Skills and knowledge of the security analyst help identify a wide range of cyber threats and respond to mitigate or minimize the risk.
- Process – Policies, standards, and guidelines are the key to success. SOC Leads/Managers develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) and runbooks on how to hunt the threats or operations for the known scenarios.
- Technology – Security Tools and technologies are another focus area here to support the overall process in identifying threats and mitigating risks to minimize the overall risk to the organization or enterprise environment.
In the above picture, the approach is to capture a high-level view of the Security Operation Center (SOC). This includes people, processes, and technology to establish the SOC for your enterprise.
Data is collected from different sources then analyzed and correlated to identify the threats and SOC specialities are responding accordingly. Next, we will be discussing some of the key considerations while establishing the SOC program in your enterprise environment
A few Key considerations, while establishing the SOC program
Listing here a few key considerations for establishing the SOC program for your organization but not limited to…Hope this will certainly help you achieve your goals to strengthen the security posture.
- Security goals/requirements need to be aligned with the business objectives – Security needs should be aligned with the business goal to succeed. Management support and a security budget are all important aspects that should be kept in mind to achieve the goal.
- Select/Invest in the Right Set of Tools/Technologies – Choosing the right set of tools for your environment enables you to manage things more effectively. It enables you to set expectations and drive things in the correct direction. Help planning integration as per your environment needs to achieve the security goals.
- On-board skilled security professionals to the SOC team – Skill and knowledge certainly enable you to maintain your security program more effectively. Make sure to on-board skilled resource, who has some hands-on managing SOC operations, Hope that will add some value
- Arrange a training program to ensure continuous learning – As a part of a continuous learning/training program help the team identify quickly these ever-changing or evolving cyber threats to your organization.
- Assess regularly for the scope of improvement opportunity – This is a continuous process, not a one-time activity. Always open your eyes to the automation approach, and also look for the improvement opportunity
Key Benefits of Establishing a Successful SOC
As you know, how SOC is important for an enterprise? Here are a few key benefits but not limited to…
- Monitoring cybersecurity threats round the clock
- Detecting threats at an early stage to minimize the risk
- Proactive Incident Handling & Response
- Overall improved security posture
- Meeting compliance & regulatory requirements
- Shortage of skilled professionals
How SOC Team can be structured in an effective manner for an Enterprise?
Another important aspect is how the SOC team can be structured. Here is the pictorial representation to explain the different Tier for your SOC you can define to handle the escalations as per severity or impact…
This pictorial representation gives an overall idea of how the SOC team structure can be defined to manage it more effectively. Defining clear roles and responsibilities makes more easier to keep track of the activities or day-to-day operations including L1, L2 or L3 escalations of the identified threats for your enterprise environment.
SOC Common challenges or pain areas for the Enterprise
While you establish SOC in your enterprise environment, you may notice certain challenges or road barriers. Let’s understand some of the pain areas – that you must be aware of –
- Limited visibility – SOC/SIEM dashboard is being implemented in the organization to get the centralized view, where alerts are collected, aggregated and correlated to analyze, monitor and detect the threats. Sometimes you may notice incomplete inventories or CMDB is not up-to-mark, which can result in limited visibility as all assets are not integrated. This is one of the common concerns, either dependency on other teams or sometimes platform compatibility-related issues.
- False positive & alert fatigue –
- Skill gap
- Increasing workload can cause burnout –
- Resource Constraints –
Conclusion
Well, It’s time to summarize our discussion here. The Security Operation Center (SOC) plays a vital role in safeguarding any enterprise from emerging threats.
So today, we have discussed an overview of the Enterprise Security Operation Center (SOC), including some of the key considerations for developing the SOC program. Also, we have reviewed the role of three components ‘People’, ‘Process’, and ‘Technology’ in establishing SOC for your organization.
Hope you have enjoyed the content, wrapping up this discussion here – soon will come with another topic on security for our discussion in a new article.
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