Security Operation Center
SOCs are an integral part of minimizing the costs of a potential data breach as they not only help organizations respond to intrusions quickly, but also constantly improve detection and prevention processes.
A centralized role within an organization called a Security Operation Center (SOC) uses people, procedures, and technology to continuously monitor and enhance the security posture of the business while preventing, detecting, analyzing, and responding to cybersecurity issues.
An organization’s IT infrastructure, including its networks, devices, appliances, and information repositories, wherever those assets are located, is collected by a SOC, which serves as a hub or central command post. The rise of sophisticated threats highlights the importance of gathering context from various sources. In essence, the SOC serves as the point of correlation for all events logged within the monitored company. The SOC must choose how each of these occurrences will be handled and responded to.
Staffing for security operations and organizational structure
Monitoring, detecting, looking into, and responding to cyberthreats around-the-clock are the responsibilities of a security operations team and, typically, a security operations center (SOC). Teams in charge of security operations are tasked with keeping an eye on and safeguarding a variety of resources, including intellectual property, customer data, business systems, and brand integrity. Security operations teams serve as the hub of collaboration in concerted efforts to monitor, assess, and defend against cyberattacks as the implementation component of an organization’s broader cybersecurity framework.
The majority of SOCs have been designed using a hub-and-spoke architecture, where the spokes can include a wide range of systems, including endpoint detection and remediation (EDR), governance, risk and compliance (GRC), application and database scanners, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA), and threat intelligence platforms (TIP).
The SOC is typically headed by a SOC manager, and it may also comprise threat hunters, incident response managers, level 1, 2, and 3 SOC analysts, incident responders, and incident managers. The CISO, who in turn reports to either the CIO or the CEO directly, receives reports from the SOC.
10 Key tasks carried out by the SOC
1. Assess the resources that are available
Both the different devices, procedures, and applications that the SOC is tasked with protecting, as well as the defensive measures at its disposal to help ensure this protection, fall under its purview.
2. Preparation and Preventative Maintenance
Even the most prepared and quick-thinking response mechanisms fall short when it comes to avoiding problems before they arise. The SOC employs preventative measures, which can be classified into two primary groups, to assist keep attackers at bay.
3. Continuous Proactive Monitoring
Tools used by the SOC scan the network 24/7 to flag any abnormalities or suspicious activities. Monitoring the network around the clock allows the SOC to be notified immediately of emerging threats, giving them the best chance to prevent or mitigate harm. Monitoring tools can include a SIEM or an EDR, better even a SOAR or an XDR, the most advanced of which can use behavioral analysis to “teach” systems the difference between regular day-to-day operations and actual threat behavior, minimizing the amount of triage and analysis that must be done by humans.
4. Alert Ranking and Management
When monitoring tools issue alerts, it is the responsibility of the SOC to look closely at each one, discard any false positives, and determine how aggressive any actual threats are and what they could be targeting. This allows them to triage emerging threats appropriately, handling the most urgent issues first.
5. Threat Response
These are the actions most people think of when they think of the SOC. As soon as an incident is confirmed, the SOC acts as first responder, performing actions like shutting down or isolating endpoints, terminating harmful processes (or preventing them from executing), deleting files, and more. The goal is to respond to the extent necessary while having as small an impact on business continuity as possible.
6. Recovery and Remediation
In the aftermath of an incident, the SOC will work to restore systems and recover any lost or compromised data. This may include wiping and restarting endpoints, reconfiguring systems or, in the case of ransomware attacks, deploying viable backups in order to circumvent the ransomware. When successful, this step will return the network to the state it was in prior to the incident.
7. Log Management
The SOC is responsible for collecting, maintaining, and regularly reviewing the log of all network activity and communications for the entire organization. This data helps define a baseline for “normal” network activity, can reveal the existence of threats, and can be used for remediation and forensics in the aftermath of an incident. Many SOCs use a SIEM to aggregate and correlate the data feeds from applications, firewalls, operating systems and endpoints, all of which produce their own internal logs.
8. Root Cause Investigation
In the aftermath of an incident, the SOC is responsible for figuring out exactly what happened when, how and why. During this investigation, the SOC uses log data and other information to trace the problem to its source, which will help them prevent similar problems from occurring in the future.
9. Security Refinement and Improvement
Cybercriminals are constantly refining their tools and tactics—and in order to stay ahead of them, the SOC needs to implement improvements on a continuous basis. During this step, the plans outlined in the Security Road Map come to life, but this refinement can also include hands-on practices such as red-teaming and purple-teaming.
10. Compliance Management
Many of the SOC’s processes are guided by established best practices, but some are governed by compliance requirements. The SOC is responsible for regularly auditing their systems to ensure compliance with such regulations, which may be issued by their organization, by their industry, or by governing bodies. Examples of these regulations include GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. Acting in accordance with these regulations not only helps safeguard the sensitive data that the company has been entrusted with—it can also shield the organization from reputational damage and legal challenges resulting from a breach.