Establishing and maintaining a security operations center (SOC) that can identify and respond to issues is an essential part of defending any enterprise. Building and calibrating an organization’s defense capabilities is key to a SOC’s success, as is having a dedicated team with skillsets like incident management and automation. However, despite their importance, many SOCs are currently unable to perform at the highest levels due to a lack of qualified resources.
According to the 2019 SANS SOC Survey, the most frequently cited barrier to SOC excellence is a shortage of skilled professionals. For this reason, building a career focused on blue team security operations is a smart move for cyber practitioners today. Developing and retaining talent for a SOC is now easier with the NEW GIAC Security Operations Certified (GSOC) certification, designed to validate skills taught in the SANS Institute course SEC450: Blue Team Fundamentals: Security Operations and Analysis.
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The GIAC Security Operations Certified (GSOC) certification is designed to confirm that practitioners are well-versed in the essential blue team incident response tools and techniques needed to run a security operations center (SOC). GSOC-certified practitioners have proven essential knowledge needed by today’s enterprises in the following areas:
- SOC monitoring and incident response using incident management systems, threat intelligence platforms, and SIEMs
- Analysis and defense against the most common enterprise-targeted attacks
- Designing, automating, and enriching security operations to increase efficiency
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John Hubbard, author of the affiliated SANS Institute SEC450 course, says, “The GIAC Operations Certified (GSOC) is a comprehensive certification covering the conceptual and practical skills for working on a modern cyber defense team. It is a certification that helps defenders differentiate themselves as someone who not only understands security operations but can also continuously improve and lift up any team they are a part of. Holders of the GSOC can proudly demonstrate their dedication to gaining a deep understanding of the mental models, processes, tools, and data required to excel in a modern security operations role. I’m incredibly excited for the availability of the GSOC and view it as an important step towards standardization of security operations team training for the information security industry.”
Earning the GSOC certification is highly recommended for anyone starting a career on the blue team, as well as security analysts, incident investigators and architects, and technical security managers. GSOC will also benefit SOC managers looking to gain additional technical perspective on how to improve analysis quality, reduce turnover, and run an efficient SOC.
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