Organizations responded with unprecedented speed to changing their operations. Cloud adoption and data-driven innovation have accelerated digitally transforming imperatives. Security teams have evolved from peripheral roles to center stage, where they must negotiate pandemic challenges, geopolitical tensions, talent shortages, and new and sophisticated cyber threats. Resilient organizations are investing in agile security solutions fueled by data.
Key to this resilience is modernizing the Security Operations Center (SOC). Today’s analysts in the SOC grapple with large and varied data streams, yet most SOCs have not completely addressed security as a data-centric challenge. Effective security demands complete visibility and integration with systems and datasets.
This is critical to modern security operations because it enables informed decision-making across security functions. A unified data platform ensures strengthened security, optimized data utilization, simplified technology investments, and innovation.
This article provides best practices and steps to build a modern SOC that leverages data-driven strategies to improve threat detection, investigation, and remediation and further organizational resilience and innovation.
What is SOC?
The purpose of a Security Operations Center is continuous monitoring, prevention, detection, investigation, and response to cyber threats. Its tasks should include protecting the organization’s assets—intellectual property, personnel data, business systems, and brand integrity. Therefore, the SOC team would have the following responsibilities: executing the organization’s comprehensive cybersecurity strategy and being a focal point for collaborative endeavors in monitoring, assessing, and mitigating cyberattacks.
Understanding the Role of SOC
A SOC is a centralized function in an organization that employs people, technology, and processes to monitor and improve the organization’s security posture constantly. The size of the SOC teams varies from organization to organization and the industry type. The SOC prevents, detects, analyzes and responds to cybersecurity incidents.
Prevention and Detection: The SOC’s operations typically take a proactive approach to cybersecurity, focusing on prevention rather than reaction. Continuous network monitoring ensures the detection of malicious activity over time, thus preventing damage. The SOC analysts investigate suspicious incidents thoroughly, meticulously collecting relevant information for further investigation.
Investigation: In this stage, the SOC analysts investigate suspicious activities to determine the type and nature of the threat. Taking the role of potential attackers, the analysts examine the organization’s network and operations, exposing vulnerabilities and exploitable points. The analysts efficiently triage security incidents by integrating internal network data with real-time global threat intelligence, preventing them from escalating.
Response: The SOC immediately initiates coordinated response activities if the incident is confirmed. As first responders, the team executes the following activities: endpoint isolation, process termination, and compromised file deletion.
After incidents have occurred, restoration of systems and data recovery are some remedial activities that include endpoint wiping, reconfigurations of systems, and deployment of backups against ransomware attacks. The successful execution of the response activities aims at bringing back the network into its pre-incident state.
Also Read: Top 10 Anomaly Detection Software for Secured Enterprise
Best Practices to Implement a Security Operations (SOC)
#1 Strategy Alignment with the organization’s goals
Aligning strategy with the overall business goals is important to ensure that the security efforts succeed and stabilize the business.
#2 Utilizing top Security Automation Tools
Security automation tools allow enterprises to improve efficiency and productivity in threat detection and incident response; therefore, using the advanced tools helps operate SOC successfully.
#3 Leveraging Threat Intelligence and Machine Learning
To address the role of AI in cybersecurity using threat intelligence and machine learning is vital. These technologies help enhance analysis and response capabilities for analysts. In addition, it fastens the decision-making and problem-solving processes.
#4 Make sure Visibility across the Network
Visibility across the network helps the analysts monitor suspicious activity for any type of cybersecurity attack or insider threat. To identify vulnerabilities, network monitoring and visibility techniques, including log analysis, network traffic monitoring, and more, are important for a secure environment.
#5 Constant Network Monitoring
To detect security incidents, constant monitoring of the network is important. It involves the establishment of a baseline for regular network activity to detect anomalies. And it can be achieved by using network monitoring tools that provide real-time network traffic information.
#6 Secure Patch Vulnerabilities
Proactive and automated vulnerability management is vital in SOC operations to ensure any areas prone to exploitation are addressed well before exploitation.
This allows companies to detect and prioritize the required patches by regularly scanning for vulnerabilities. In addition, it is important to know that securing and patching is an ongoing process that requires prompt action, diligence, and automated setup.
Also Read: Top SecOps Tools, Use Cases and Best Practices
Top SOC-as-a-service Providers
#1 Sophos
#2 Palo Alto Networks
#3 Rapid7
#4 Qualys
#5 Symantec
Steps to Modernize SOC of an Organization
1. Balancing Security Strategy with Business Objectives
1. Balancing Security Strategy with Business ObjectivesCybersecurity often focuses too much on technology at the expense of business value. This issue stems from a lack of cohesive top-down strategy and continuous organizational communication, leading to siloed teams with different or competing priorities. The modern CISO requires business acumen to build stakeholder relationships and communicate risks effectively to corporate boards. Working with key stakeholders to align security with business objectives is essential to developing a solid, well-supported, and funded program.
Develop operational-driven metrics to demonstrate how security improves business outcomes, set clear expectations, and communicate impactful results to the board. By building strong, long-term relationships with stakeholders, security executives can create meaningful change and elevate security to a company-wide priority.
2. Evaluate Security Posture Maturity and Security Gaps Identification
It is very important for any organization, small or big, to have the resources to run SOC around the clock. Leveraging the SOMM tool to benchmark current maturity and develop a roadmap to improve posture based on the available resources, budget and risk tolerance. The SOMM tool comprises centralized forensic visibility, mean time to respond, and mean time to detect.
SOMM offers:
- Improved visibility by identifying and eliminating blind spots, accelerating threat investigation and incident response.
- Rapid threat identification in the entire attack lifecycle and the surface where it is difficult to detect threats.
- It helps reduce the response time by gaining insights to better decision making and responding quickly to threats.
3. Prioritize threat Use Cases after Identifying and Understanding Risks
Once you understand business risks and security gaps, develop a concrete plan to create threat use cases. Prioritize addressing the most critical gaps based on your environment and defined goals, and report progress to the board. While external threats like ransomware and phishing are prevalent, focus on use cases relevant to your environment, even if vendors offer many options. Plan for the lifecycle management of use cases.
For SOCs using an SIEM, follow a six-step methodology and review use cases every three months to optimize investment. If resources are limited, join threat intel networks or ISAC groups to stay updated on industry-specific threats and best practices.
4. Focusing on the Zero Trust Architecture
In recent years, severe cyberattacks such as the SolarWinds breach, Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, and Log4j vulnerability have compromised national intelligence and disrupted critical infrastructure, highlighting the urgent need for prioritizing security. A perimeter-based defense is insufficient; an assume-breach approach is necessary.
Based on the principle of “never trust, always verify,” the Zero Trust security model focuses on securing resources such as data, identities, and services regardless of location. It assumes all networks are untrusted, applies least privilege access, and requires comprehensive inspection and monitoring.
In 2021, the White House committed to modernizing federal cybersecurity with significant investments, emphasizing Zero Trust as a core strategy in President Biden’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity, which urges the Federal Government to lead by example in preventing, detecting, and remediating cyber incidents.
Solutions required for a robust Zero Trust architecture:
- CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model
- NIST Specialization Publication 800-207
- Forrester Zero Trust eXtended Ecosystem
- The Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA) framework
- How to Build Zero Trust Ecosystem
- Free Zero Trust Resources
4. Industry Standards and Detection Framework
With Zero Trust principles, always assume a breach and proactively hunt for threats. Strengthen detection using the MITRE ATT&CK™ framework and NIST standards to close security gaps. ATT&CK provides actionable intelligence based on known adversary behaviors, helping defenders understand and map techniques to adversary actions in their environment. For improved accuracy and scaled threat detection, leverage an SIEM solution for high-fidelity visibility into ATT&CK tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
Benefits of Effective SOC
Centralized Visibility: As enterprises adapt to change and turn towards digital transformation initiatives, they are driven by the deployment of IoT and cloud computing devices. The growth of bring-your-own-device and remote work policies has increased the connection of remote and mobile devices for corporate networks. The maintenance of security and visibility across various devices has become more complicated. To secure diverse networks, an integrated network visibility solution is needed.
Continuous monitoring: The companies are bound by the standard business working hours, but the cybercriminals work round the clock and can attack at any time. The attacks are easy for the cybercriminals post the work hours of any enterprise. As a result, continuous monitoring is required to minimize risks. SOC helps organizations with 24/7 monitoring.
Lower Cybersecurity Costs: With the multiple platforms and licensing for strong and complete protection against cyber-attacks become expensive for organizations. Effective SOC helps to save money in the long run by reducing data breaches and cyber-attacks. SOC blocks even a single cyberattack before the damage is done.
Improved Collaboration: With centralized security resources, the SOC needs one security team that supports the entire organization. This clear process improves collaboration between team members and simplifies it to meet an enterprise’s cybersecurity needs.
Conclusion
Investing in SOC practices is crucial for any organization as it helps mitigate risks and improve threat detection and response capabilities. Adopting the right steps and the best practices for security operations center implementation helps businesses stay ahead of cyber threats. It brings resilience to security operations and automates the organization’s SOC.
FAQs
1. What is NOC vs SOC?
A Network Operations Center (NOC) ensures the smooth functioning of an organization’s IT infrastructure, while a Security Operations Center (SOC) focuses on detecting and safeguarding against cybersecurity threats. For optimal effectiveness and security, an organization must have both a NOC and a SOC supporting its IT infrastructure.
2. What is the role of SIEM solutions in SOC?
SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) systems play a crucial role in a Security Operations Center (SOC), offering essential tools and capabilities for comprehensive security monitoring, threat detection, incident response, and compliance management. These functionalities are vital components of SOC operations.
3. What is SOC-as-a-service?
SOC-as-a-service is a subscription-based threat detection and response service that provides businesses with in-house security operations centers. With this, a third-party vendor manages organizations with a comprehensive suite of security tools and services over the Internet.
4. What is EDR Security?
Endpoint detection and response are tools used to detect and investigate endpoint threats. EDR tools offer detection, investigation, threat hunting, and response capabilities.
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