What is Security Operations Center(SOC) and Why is it Essential

Are you constantly coming across the term ‘SOC’? Curious to learn more about what it stands for, what it encompasses, and—most importantly—what relevance it has in your daily life? 

You’re not alone. SOC (Security Operations Center) is a rapidly growing area of security management and one of the most important components of any successful organizational strategy. 

In this blog post, we’ll explore what is SOC, why it exists, and its key elements, functions, and benefits so that you can gain an in-depth understanding of just how significant these operations centers can be for your organization’s workflow.

Let’s dive in…

What is a Security Operation Center (SOC)?

Security Operation Center (SOC) is a centralized solution that combines people, processes, and technology to monitor an organization’s security estate and alert personnel of potential threats or malicious activities. 

Furthermore, a SOC serves as the hub for responding to cybersecurity incidents proactively by quickly identifying the scope and impact of cyber-attacks, making assessments, containing threats, and restoring service operations accordingly. 

In short, it is a centralized keeper that continuously protects and strengthens an organization’s security stance while detecting, analyzing, and handling cyber incidents of all sizes, shapes, and colors.  

For many organizations, the modern-day command center is none other than the SOC. This SOC acts like the hub and communicates with every part of an organization’s IT infrastructure, both on-premise and in the cloud. 

The SOC is like the bridge between all within an organization. Each event must be carefully considered, ensuring that the right actions are taken to protect the system properly. Let’s see why you need it for your organization.

Why is SOC needed?

Having an exclusive SOC offers various advantages to any organization, from steady system surveillance and comprehensive visibility, to budget-friendly SOC for cybersecurity expenses and improved collaboration. Cybercriminals will never rest – so your enterprise should always be prepared.

Here are the top advantages of the Security Operations Center: 

• Continuous Monitoring
• Centralized Visibility
• Reduced Cybersecurity Costs
• Better Collaboration

1. Continuous monitoring

Protecting businesses from cybercriminals requires around-the-clock vigilance. Attackers prefer to strike when defenses are down and don’t stick to regular working hours– often launching their attacks in the off hours or on weekends, hoping no one is watching. 

You need to invest in continuous monitoring to minimize the risk. It may sound strenuous, but it is necessary for companies that want to protect themselves from unseen cyber threats.

2. Centralized visibility

With digital transformation initiatives come cloud computing and IoT devices that you must integrate into existing networks.

Policies like remote work and BYOD allow corporate network access from various offsite locations, creating new challenges for IT departments needing help to maintain a secure working environment.

With varying platforms, vulnerabilities, and technologies to account for, it can only be possible with the right tools in place – namely, a centralized visibility solution.

This gives your company full transparency into infrastructure and potential attack vectors so that you can protect yourself from malicious activity or data breaches like never before.

3. Reduced cybersecurity costs

Having comprehensive cybersecurity coverage for a company can be costly. Multiple platforms you may need will have various licenses to ensure full visibility and protection against cyber threats.

However, an enterprise-wide SOC allows these costs to be shared across the entire organization while eliminating departmental silos, which often cause additional overhead due to unnecessary duplication of services or resources.

Investing in a SOC can be financially advantageous, especially considering the millions of dollars associated with an unmitigated data breach or ransomware attack.

SOC shields businesses from even one cyber attack before any damage occurs – which is more than enough justification for their value and ROI.

4. Better collaboration

Working together can make all the difference in cybersecurity. Just like having a strong team of firefighters ready to jump into action when a blaze breaks out makes extinguishing it much more effective, having an organized team dedicated to preventing and responding to cyber incidents can save you from costly losses. 

A SOC forges a single point of security for the entire organization, providing the collaboration necessary for rapid response. With everyone working together, SOC increases their effectiveness by relying on each team member’s specialized security knowledge and experience. 

This close intermingling of tech know-how and speedy responses enables SOC to act quickly, minimize risk exposure, and remediate any malicious activity confidently. Put simply: better collaboration equals better protection against cyber threats.

What are the functions performed by SOC?

The SOC performs functions such as constantly monitoring, preventing, detecting, investigating, and responding quickly to digital threats on a twenty-four-hour basis.

These units serve as a hub of security within an organization by employing people, processes, and tools to continuously improve safety while preventing any potential cyber threats from occurring or responding correctly when they arise. Here are the three functions performed by SOC:

1. Prevention and detection

Let’s take the story of two companies – one with an active and robust SOC team and the other without. This illustrates just how effective prevention is when it comes to cybersecurity.

In the company with a SOC team, they monitored their systems around the clock, catching any malicious activities before they could take effect. They were always one step ahead; no danger, no damage done. 

The second company had no such security measures in place. Their network was constantly under attack, and even though they managed to put out most fires as they occurred, there was still extensive damage from time to time.

The stark contrast between these two cities highlights the importance of investing in effective prevention tactics, ultimately saving money, time, and effort in the long run.

2. Investigation

Investigating security incidents requires a combination of craft and insight. The SOC analyst works to unravel the clues that may reveal the nature of a threat, identify how far it has penetrated the network, and develop a plan to respond before it gets out of hand. 

Working like an attacker, the analyst scans for indicators of suspicious activity, using their experience and knowledge of global threat intelligence to hone in on the facts behind an event. 

Sifting through data from the organization’s network with pinpoint accuracy, they carefully examine every detail, forming an effective triage for each type of incident. With their thorough approach, the SOC analyst helps keep the organization safe from menacing threats.

3. Response

Once an incident is confirmed, the SOC team intervenes to contain and remediate it. Working quickly, they isolate affected endpoints, terminate malicious processes, and delete suspicious files to protect data. 

After that, their focus shifts to restoration as they bring systems back online, reconfiguring them as necessary or deploying backups when ransomware is involved. 

Their goal is to return the network to its pre-incident state, giving peace of mind while providing an additional layer of security against similar occurrences in the future.

What are the benefits of SOC?

Incorporating a committed SOC into your organization guarantees several advantages, such as uninterrupted surveillance of the network, improved collaboration capabilities between departments and lower cybersecurity expenditures.

Here are the 5 benefits of SOC (Security Operations Center):

1. Continuous protection

The vigilance of a SOC never wavers. Its team members, dedicated to ensuring safety and security like guardians through the night, scan for potential trouble – in-house employees or virtual staff – all hours, day and night, 365 days a year. Threats don’t follow office hours after all, so neither do its agents.

2. Quick and effective response

The SOC team is a vigilant guard, always looking for threats. Should something abnormal be detected, they swiftly investigate and verify its malicious intent before taking action -allowing them to respond quickly and effectively. 

The efficient incident response process allows precise containment of any potential harm or damage, allowing you to rest easy knowing your systems are safe and secure.

3. Decreased costs of breaches and operations

Cybersecurity breaches can devastate a business, but timely detection and response from the SOC team reduce these costs. With constant monitoring in place, potential attackers are warded away quickly before they can do any real damage.

This prevents costly data loss or reputation damage that could otherwise arise due to extended network occupation by malicious actors.

4. Threat prevention

As a modern-day sentinel, SOC keeps a vigilant watch over your organization’s digital domains. When you analyze and track potential threats in real-time – SOC can identify an attack before it happen.

This will enable you to safeguard both data and systems from malicious actors trying to gain unauthorized access or control. 

It’s not just about detecting incidents anymore; with SOC teams staying one step ahead of attackers at all times, they give businesses the power to defend themselves against any cyber threat.

5. Security expertise

From the SOC Manager who oversees operations and ensures smooth running processes to incident responders and security analysts responding rapidly when they detect an issue – their skills are invaluable in helping you stay secure. 

With additional positions, including engineers dedicatedly hunting for new emerging threats every day and forensic investigators diligently searching through data trails left behind by malicious attackers – these experts provide that extra level of protection your business needs. 

Also Check out: SOC 2 certification guide

What are the Challenges of SOC?

Here are the challenges of SOC you need to be aware of:

1. Too many security alerts

Cyber attackers have become inventive when it comes to security systems, creating a constant barrage of security alerts for your IT department. 

Not only do these notifications cause anxiety and waste productivity, but they also add to your company’s operational costs with false positives. 

A survey showed that more than half of the respondents reported they had experienced false-positive alerts as part of their security protocols. 

This means even more time is taken away from sorting out the real threats to weed out unnecessary ones and “false alarms,” so no further resources are wasted due to inaccurate detections.

After an alert is verified, it’s up to your analyst to investigate deeper into the issue and determine the malicious activity.

2. Tracing the cyber attackers

Tracing cyber attackers is like tracking a phantom–they are adept at disguising themselves and can often slip away without leaving any trace. 

However, experienced investigators know that even the most expert criminals leave some evidence behind, which may just be enough to crack the case.

3. Modifications and reconfigure your systems for improved security

After hours or days of intense focus and concentration investigating cyber threats, your security analysts finally identify the real culprit behind the attack. 

This brings relief and a sense of accomplishment – they found it! However, this relief quickly fades as they have to modify and reconfigure their security systems to ensure that the same breach will never happen again. 

It’s like starting the arduous searching process repeatedly, with added complexity in differentiating between false positives. Not an easy task for anyone in the field.

4. Staffing deficit

The staffing shortage that SOCs are facing has been exasperated by the rapid shift to cloud-based infrastructure, operating modes, and SaaS-based apps.

The reality is that only a small number of companies operate on serverless platforms, so the likelihood of finding security personnel with expertise in such systems could be much higher. 

This need for more skilled personnel directly leads to a job market skill shortage. When businesses cannot attract candidates with the needed qualifications, they must instead fill the gap with existing employees who may need to be proficient or have experience in those areas. 

This puts tremendous strain on the company as their workforce may become overstretched due to needing more responsibility or knowledge gaps in certain areas.

5. Shortage of knowledge

The company may have employees with vast knowledge of security systems, but more is needed to make sure threats are identified in time. Knowledge shortages will cause employees to miss potential signs of a problem and lead to an inadequate response that only worsens the situation. 

It also leads to large amounts of time being wasted on sorting out false positives and negatives instead of addressing the real issue before it is too late.

When the lack of knowledge strikes your SOC teams, they won’t be able to predict or prevent an actual attack – leaving them vulnerable to both preventable and unpreventable assaults.

6. Technology 

The technology challenge facing SOCs is not just one but an ever-changing multitude. Adequate resources and tools are needed to meet the expectations of internal and external requirements. 

New kinds of threats appear daily, and the need for appropriate tools to detect them results in gaps in filtering and analytics metrics.

To rise to the challenge, you need more advanced and well-designed tools, beyond what information security departments can provide, that can identify suspicious behavior before threats occur. 

Increasing efficiency with better integration and automation is vital – such measures reduce operational costs and help to identify important data or trends faster through stronger analysis capabilities. 

How to get started with SOC?

To  get started with SOC, follow the below steps:

• Craft an effective SOC strategy that will meet your organization’s unique needs.
• Next, design the perfect solution for your company before building processes and procedures around it.
• Then set up the environment necessary for the successful deployment of end-to-end use cases.
• Finally – implement, maintain, and continually evolve this powerful security system to ensure optimal protection from cyber threats.

The Sprinto Way

To ensure that your company is fully SOC compliant, you’ll need the help of an expert. The team at Sprinto is happy to help you every step of the way to ensure compliance and keep your data safe. 

With Sprinto, you can be confident that you are compliant and have the evidence to back it up. The intuitive dashboard and control mapping gives you a clear overview of your compliance posture so you can identify any areas that need improvement. 

Automated procedures for evidence collection and continuous monitoring make it easy to show SOC compliance and keep auditors happy. So take a deep breath, relax, and let Sprinto handle the stress of preparing for your next SOC audit.

Book a Demo today!

FAQs

What are the four types of SOC?

SOC comes in four distinct variations: SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, and the specialized SOC for Cybersecurity. Each of these divisions has its unique subset to account for various scenarios.

What are the SOC purposes and duties?

SOC teams are tasked with the crucial objective of shielding businesses from cyberattacks. To proficiently handle security incidents, SOC personnel must accomplish various duties: Investigating Potential Incidents: The sheer number of alerts received daily can be overwhelming; however, not all warnings signify actual threats.

Who is responsible for SOC reporting?

This could involve CFOs, CIOs, compliance officers, vendor management personnel, regulators, or business partners who know how best to utilize such a report.

Why is SOC audit required?

SOC assessments ensure that third-party service organizations, vendors, internal governance practices, and risk management protocols are operating securely. By regularly conducting these audits, you can comply with regulatory guidelines to protect your organization from potential risks.