A security operations center (SOC), managed or in-house, can help mitigate the risk of a data breach occurring and limit risk when a breach occurs. But the role of a SOC and its business benefits go far beyond just that.
In this post you will learn what a Security Operations Center does, what the core benefits of having one are and who should be using one.
The Security Operations Center Defined
A Security Operations Center or SOC is an in-house or outsourced team of cybersecurity experts who handle organizational and technological security challenges for your business.
The SOC works with your IT department or internal security team to manage your cybersecurity strategy for the organization. This expert team protects the organization 24/7/365 by proactively monitoring, detecting and analyzing data, and providing incident response and recovery. It ensures the ability of organizations to operate securely, at all times.
Many large organizations have internal SOC teams, but others opt for security intelligence and operations consulting services, such as SOC-as-a-Service, that include an arsenal of security solutions to maintain a strong security posture.
SOC Processes and Procedures
While the everyday duties of the SOC vary by organization, these teams generally work to establish rules, analyze feeds, identify exceptions, remediate vulnerabilities and keep a lookout for new vulnerabilities. But SOCs are about more than just detecting incidents. The overarching goals driving SOC teams tend to be:
- Consolidate and correlate log data from across the entire organization
- Coordinate the analysis of alerts and information from that data
- Orchestrate the incident response that is triggered by those alerts
- Management of industry-recommended best practices and compliance mandates
A single vulnerability in your network can put your business at risk. In the event of a security breach or cyber threat, the SOC will investigate the issue and then respond or report it accordingly. At Difenda, we patch the gaps in your IT security keeping you ahead of potential threats.
Discover what a more comprehensive and collaborative approach to security can provide for your business. Read the case study!
The 5 Key Benefits of Having a SOC
Over our years of experience, we have noticed that the most common pain points organization face when it comes to security operations is a lack of skilled staff and the absence of effective orchestration and automation capabilities in threat response.
Organizations that choose to augment their security program with SOC-as-a-service can quickly aid these challenges by receiving an expert team of cybersecurity experts with the processes and technology required for faster and more accurate threat response.
Beyond those core benefits, SOC-as-a-Service helps organizations achieve:
- 24/7/365 monitoring for improved asset visibility.
- Expert incident response that gets your business back to business as usual, faster.
- Faster detection and remediation of threats.
- A more proactive and effective cybersecurity program from the unique perspectives of your security team.
- Improved data and metrics that help you make better business decisions.
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Should You Go with a Managed SOC or Build One In-House?
When considering how to implement a SOC into your business it’s important to look at the benefits of an outsourced over an internal SOC, to understand which is best for your organization.
Today, many large organizations have internal SOC teams, but others opt for security intelligence and operations consulting services, such as SOC-as-a-Service, that include an arsenal of security solutions to maintain a strong security posture.
Managed SOC or SOC-as-a-Service is a subscription-based model for Managed Detection and Response services. It is a program operations service run by an external Security Operations Center team that brings an expert security operations center to your business.
Unlike an internal SOC team or IT team, Managed SOC allows you to have experts methodically think through and complete tasks in a sustainable manner. SOC-as-a-Service allows businesses to create a process for consistent and measurable actions on behalf of a customer by leveraging technologies and business context to respond and mitigate risk. This external team of experts will monitor your logs, devices, cloud environments, and network for known and evolving advanced threats.
Organizations are increasingly opting for Managed SOC because it can offer 24/7/365 monitoring without a significant investment in personnel, security software, and other infrastructure. So, not only does this service allow for greater security protection, but it is also more cost-effective.
At Difenda we go one step further. It’s not just SOC-as-a-service or security programs as a service. Difenda offers SecOps-as-a-Service where we bring together our SOC functions with many of our managed services to enable end-to-end coverage of cyber threats in your network.