What is a SOC: Functions, Roles, Benefits, Challenges
What is a SOC?
A Security Operations Center (SOC) is a centralised unit that utilises various processes and technologies to continuously monitor and enhance the organisation’s cyber defence mechanisms. IT security professionals at the SOC are dedicated to detecting, analysing, and investigating cyber threats in real time to ensure the total safety of the organisation’s IT infrastructure, including networks, devices, applications, and data stores. SOCs are tailored to meet the unique requirements of each organisation, considering elements like size, industry, and the specific threats they face.
The primary role of the SOC is to strengthen an organisation’s security posture by unifying and coordinating all cybersecurity technologies, practices, and operations. This is crucial because different organisations encounter different risk levels depending on their industry, the sensitivity of their data, and the potential impact of cyber threats. For example, a financial institution's security needs vary from those of a healthcare provider or a manufacturing company.
Considering that technologies in the modern world run continuously, the SOC usually operates in shifts to ensure prompt response to any emergency threats 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Such dedication guarantees that every event logged within the organisation is vigilantly examined, allowing the SOC to maintain a proactive defence posture against cyber threats. This includes continuous analysis of servers, endpoints, network activities, applications, and operating systems for signs of potential cybersecurity incidents. It leads to improved threat protection, more effective security policies, faster threat detection, and more cost-effective threat response.
A SOC normally operates as either an in-house team or an outsourced service provided by Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs). Regardless of its configuration, a well-established SOC not only fortifies an organisation's defences but also boosts customer confidence and simplifies compliance with industry, national, and global privacy regulations. The importance of a Security Operations Center cannot be overestimated. The importance of a Security Operations Center cannot be overestimated. As the backbone of modern cybersecurity, a SOC plays a crucial role in safeguarding an organisation’s digital assets against the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats.
What does SOC do?
In order to protect an organisation’s IT infrastructure from cyber threats, a Security Operations Center (SOC) engages in numerous activities continuously to ensure resilience against emerging threats. These activities are tailored to meet the unique needs and risks of the organisation. The key functions of the SOC can be categorised as the following:
SOC Continuous Monitoring and Behavioral Analytics
Monitoring the entire IT infrastructure 24/7 allows the SOC to prevent or swiftly mitigate any security incidents and to immediately address potential threats. To achieve that, SOC professionals use advanced tools such as Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) technologies. For the majority of SOCs, the core technology used for monitoring, detection, and response has been the SIEM system. SIEM systems identify potential threats by analysing the log and event data that are collected in real time from various sources, such as servers, applications, and network devices, enabling comprehensive monitoring. However, recently SOCs started implementing XDR technology, which provides automation of incident detection and response. Most advanced technologies provide behavioural monitoring, which helps to distinguish between normal operations and actual threats, minimise false positives, and ensure suspicious activities are promptly addressed.
Incident Response
In case there is a potential security incident, the SOC acts as the first responder. The team isolates affected systems, terminates harmful processes, removes malicious files, and runs antivirus or anti-malware software, aiming to contain and mitigate the threat with minimal disruption to business operations. Incident response also involves investigating the root cause to understand how and why the incident occurred, helping to prevent future incidents.
Threat Detection and Alert Management
The SOC meticulously examines alerts generated by monitoring tools to distinguish genuine threats from false positives. It is SOC’s responsibility to identify what the threats target and how aggressive the actual threats are. Monitoring systems assign severity to alerts based on multiple factors, including potential impact on business operations, threat actor capability and intent, and likelihood of exploitation, among others. The SOC members assess the severity of these alerts and prioritise the most critical threats, ensuring that the most urgent issues are tackled first. This triage process is crucial for effective threat management and prompt response.
Asset Management and Discovery
The first step in effective cybersecurity is thoroughly understanding the assets that require protection. This includes all hardware, software, tools, and technologies used within the organisation. The SOC's role involves maintaining a comprehensive inventory of all applications, servers, cloud services, devices, and databases, ensuring they are consistently monitored for any security incidents. Many SOCs utilise various asset discovery tools to effectively cover all the assets within an organisation.
Log Management
The SOC is entrusted with maintaining detailed logs of all network activities and communications within the organisation. Logs are indispensable for tracing and identifying actions that might have led to a security incident. By carefully examining these logs, the SOC can determine a standard for usual activities and spot any suspicious activities that signal potential threats. Efficient log management not only helps meet regulatory standards but also plays a crucial role in forensic investigations. In fact, cybercriminals often hope that the organisations do not regularly review their logs, which will let them perform malicious activities without being noticed.
Preparation and Preventive Maintenance
To keep an organisation from attackers, the SOC implements measures that can be categorised as preparation and preventive maintenance. To prevent security incidents from occurring, the SOC implements various preventive measures. This includes regular updates and patches to software systems, updating firewall policies, and managing blacklists and whitelists. The preparation stage includes SOC members staying informed about the most recent cybersecurity trends, the latest security innovations, attack vectors and emerging threats, and recent cybercrime activities, helping create a proactive security roadmap and disaster recovery plans.
Recovery and Remediation
After containing an incident, the SOC eliminates any further threats and then focuses on restoring systems to their original state. This process typically includes wiping and rebooting compromised endpoints, recovering data from backups, and reconfiguring systems. By ensuring effective recovery and remediation, the organisation can quickly return to normal operations and address any exploited vulnerabilities. After the recovery is completed, the SOC might be tasked with investigating the root cause of the incident.
Continuous Improvement
Cyber threats are always evolving and getting more sophisticated, and the SOC must constantly refine its strategies to stay ahead. This includes analysing incident data to improve detection and response processes, updating security policies, staff training, and incorporating new tools and technologies. Moreover, the SOC must stay updated on the most recent threat intelligence, technologies, and security solutions. At a higher level, the SOC team should identify new cybersecurity trends to prepare the team in advance. Continuous improvement ensures the SOC remains effective in protecting the organisation against emerging threats.
Compliance Management
SOC teams must ensure their operations correspond to organisational policies, industry standards, and regulatory requirements such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), and GDPR (Global Data Protection Regulation). To make sure SOC team members act in line with these regulations, the regular audits and compliance checks are very important. Adhering to these regulations helps to keep the sensitive data in safety, as well as protects an organisation from potential breaches leading to reputational damage and legal challenges. In case there is a security incident, the SOC makes sure that the necessary incident data is stored for evidence and auditing and that law enforcement, regulators, users, and other parties involved are notified according to the regulations.
Key team members of a SOC
The SOC’s strength lies within its team members and their expertise. The significance of the SOC team members cannot be overestimated, each member greatly contributes to defending against cyber threats. The SOC team structure varies depending on the organisation’s industry, size, security maturity level, budget, and etc. However, the roles from the list below are essential for any SOC and neglecting them might lead to unfortunate events. Key SOC roles:
SOC Manager
The SOC manager is responsible for overseeing the SOC’s daily operations, making sure that all operations run smoothly and the organisation’s security posture remains strong. The duties of the SOC manager include communicating with other departments, administering incident response processes, managing resources, developing and enforcing security policies, and tracking the performance of security systems.
SOC Analysts
SOC analysts are the core of any SOC, as they are responsible for monitoring networks and systems to identify any threats to the organisation. There are three tiers of SOC analysts, each having their specific duties:
Tier 1 SOC analyst: The first line of defence, focusing on checking and sorting out the alerts, and reporting. They review, perform initial analysis and classify security alerts and potential threats.
Tier 2 SOC analyst: They handle alerts that Tier 1 analysts escalate. They conduct more detailed analysis and take appropriate response actions.
Tier 3 SOC analyst: They are the most experienced professionals in the SOC, who handle the most complex tasks. They conduct advanced threat hunting utilising advanced tools and techniques, as well as perform detailed forensic analysis and handle complex incidents.
Security Engineers
Security engineers are responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining the technical controls and defences that safeguard the organisation’s systems and assets. It includes activities such as configuring firewalls and IDS, performing security checks and audits, implementing access controls, and etc. Security engineers collaborate with SOC analysts, DevOps, and development teams to strengthen the organisation’s security architecture.
Threat Hunters
Threat hunters are proactive investigators who specialise in detecting and mitigating advanced threats. Threat hunters ensure the continuous improvement of the organisation’s security systems through conducting rigorous investigations to find any hidden threats and vulnerabilities within the system.
Incident Responders
Incident responders are the first ones to take action against a security incident. They isolate affected systems, get rid of harmful processes, and remove malicious files. They coordinate all these efforts to neutralise the threats as fast as possible to minimise the damage caused by the incident and maintain business continuity.
Benefits of having a SOC
A Security Operations Center (SOC) provides numerous benefits to organisations, significantly enhancing their cybersecurity posture. Some of the key advantages:
Asset Protection: By employing proactive monitoring and swift response capabilities, SOCs help to prevent unauthorised access, ensuring the security of the organisation's valuable assets.
Enhanced Incident Response: By quickly identifying, containing, and mitigating threats, SOC teams ensure that normal operations are restored with minimal disruption.
Business Continuity: Effective incident response that is provided by SOC essentially ensures the organisation’s assets are protected and business continuity is maintained.
Proactive Threat Detection: Continuous monitoring of networks and systems allows SOCs to swiftly identify and address security threats. This proactive approach to threat detection helps minimise potential damage and data breaches, keeping organisations ahead in an ever-changing threat landscape.
Improved Risk Management: SOCs analyse security events and trends to identify potential vulnerabilities within an organisation. By addressing these weaknesses proactively, SOC teams can mitigate risks before cyber attackers exploit them. This proactive risk management approach significantly bolsters the organisation's overall security posture.
Increased Visibility and Control: SOCs provide a centralised view of an organisation’s security posture, allowing for better visibility and control over cybersecurity operations. This centralised approach facilitates real-time analysis and quick decision-making, ensuring that security measures are always aligned with the organisation’s needs.
Regulatory Compliance: By implementing effective security measures and maintaining detailed records of incidents and responses, SOCs ensure that organisations remain compliant with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. Having a dedicated SOC team guarantees compliance is consistently met.
Customer Trust: Operating a SOC demonstrates a strong commitment to cybersecurity, enhancing trust and confidence among customers and stakeholders. By showing that the organisation is dedicated to protecting sensitive information, businesses can improve their reputation and foster long-term relationships with clients.
Cost Savings: Investing in a SOC can lead to significant cost savings by preventing costly data breaches and cyberattacks. The upfront investment in SOC capabilities is often far less than the potential financial damages and reputational risks associated with a major security incident. Additionally, outsourcing SOC functions to managed security service providers (MSSPs) can reduce the need for in-house security staffing, further lowering costs for any additional hardware or personnel investments.
Automation and Efficiency: Many SOCs utilise automated processes and advanced analytics to enhance efficiency and reduce manual tasks. Automation allows SOC teams to quickly detect and respond to threats, improving overall security operations. This efficiency helps organisations optimise their resources and reduce costs associated with manual security management.
Challenges of implementing a SOC
Implementing a Security Operations Center (SOC) is a complex process that comes with its own challenges. Understanding these challenges is crucial for organisations to build an effective SOC that can withstand the evolving cyber threat landscape. Some of the main challenges:
Compliance management
Organisations must make sure that their SOC activities comply with different regulatory requirements and industry standards. Maintaining compliance requires regular audits, documentation, and adherence to various regulations. Non-compliance will lead to reputational damage and legal penalties, making it impossible to ignore while setting up the SOC.
Technology integration
Integrating various security tools and technologies within a SOC is a complex yet crucial step. These tools must work flawlessly together to provide a comprehensive security solution. Ensuring compatibility between different software systems requires detailed planning and precise execution. Any failure in integration can jeopardise the SOC's operability and effectiveness.
Enormous amount of data
The volume of network traffic and data that a SOC must monitor and analyse continuously can be overwhelming. As organisations grow, the amount of data generated increases exponentially, making real-time analysis challenging. Effective data management solutions are required to filter, scrutinise, aggregate, and correlate this information to identify potential threats without overloading the SOC team.
Alert fatigue
SOC teams often face an immense number of security alerts, many of which may be false positives or lack sufficient information for effective investigation. Failing to implement advanced filtering and behavioural analytics tools will lead to alert fatigue, where SOC personnel might miss out on some of the alerts, increasing the risk of critical incidents being overlooked.
Sophisticated attackers
Threat actors are constantly improving their tactics to bypass traditional security systems like endpoint security and firewalls. Sophisticated attackers utilise advanced techniques and tools. In order to keep up with the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape, SOCs need to implement advanced anomaly detection and machine learning capabilities to detect threats and respond effectively.
High implementation and operation costs
Establishing an in-house SOC involves considerable financial investment. This includes the cost of advanced technologies, software, AI and automation tools necessary to run the SOC effectively. Besides the initial setup costs, there are ongoing expenses related to infrastructure maintenance, upgrades, and adjustments to keep up with the technological advancements. Hiring specialised professionals further adds to the financial burden. In case an organisation outsources its SOC functions to MSSPs, the initial investment is significantly reduced. However, some level of financial commitment is still required to effectively outsource SOC functions to a reputable MSSP.
Talent gap
Many industries suffer from the shortage of qualified professionals, cybersecurity is no exception, which makes the talent gap one of the most significant challenges in implementing a SOC. The demand for skilled SOC personnel significantly exceeds the supply, creating a notable talent gap that organisations find challenging to fill. This shortage often results in existing team members feeling overwhelmed, which heightens the risk of burnout. To fill the gap, organisations invest in training their teams, but it requires significant time and resources.
While these challenges may sound daunting, there are different ways to effectively implement a SOC or outsource it to external companies. Regardless of your choice, overcoming these challenges requires strategic planning and investments to be made. In the upcoming articles, we are going to discuss whether you should build your own in-house SOC or outsource your SOC functions to MSSPs, specific strategies and solutions to address the implementation challenges, SOC implementation guide, and how to choose the right MSSP. Stay tuned!