A Security Operation Center (SOC) is a centralized function within an organization that uses people, procedures, and technology to continually monitor and enhance the security posture of an organization while preventing, detecting, analyzing, and responding to cybersecurity threats.
A SOC functions as a central command post, collecting data from across an organization’s IT infrastructure, including its networks, devices, appliances, and data stores, regardless of where those resources are located.
SOC as a service can be used by any business to not only identify threats, but also to analyze them, investigate the source, report on any vulnerabilities uncovered, and plan how to avoid similar incidents in the future. In this article, we will discuss the role of a security operations center.
Roles and Responsibilities of the SOC
The SOC’s principal responsibility is to protect the organization from cyberattacks. To properly manage security incidents, SOC teams must perform a variety of roles, including:
1. Investigating Possible threats
SOC teams receive a lot of notifications, but not all of them are legitimate assaults. SOC analysts are in charge of investigating a potential incident to see if it’s a genuine attack or not.
2. Coordinating an Incident Response
Responding to an incident necessitates collaboration with a variety of parties and the application of a variety of techniques. This procedure must be orchestrated by SOC analysts to avoid delays or incomplete cleanup due to oversights.
3. Maintaining Relevance
As the cyber threat scene evolves, SOC teams must be prepared to manage the most current threats to the enterprise. This includes keeping up with new and emerging threats and ensuring that security systems are equipped with the most up-to-date rules for detecting them.
4. Patching Vulnerable Systems
Cyber attackers frequently use flaws as an attack vector. Patches for insecure enterprise systems and software must be identified, applied, and tested by SOC teams.
5. Infrastructure Management
New security solutions are necessary as the cyber threat landscape changes and the enterprise network evolves. Security operation centers (SOCs) are in charge of finding, implementing, configuring, and maintaining their security infrastructure.
6. Notification of security breach
When unforeseen security incidents occur, organizations strive for minimum or no network disruption. To maintain business continuity, a SOC team notifies users as soon as possible.
Best Practises for Building a Strong Security Operations Center Team
Security operations best practices can provide businesses with the tools they need to protect themselves while also improving the working environment for SOC teams.
1. Security automation is used by efficient SOCs
Businesses can examine more security events, identify more problems, and protect themselves more effectively by combining highly talented security analysts with security automation.
2. Make good use of technology
Your SOC’s capabilities are determined by its technological advantages. Technology should be used to collect and aggregate data, as well as to prevent dangers and respond to them when they arise.
A team with tools and data sources that minimize false positives can increase the number of time analysts spend researching legitimate security problems.
3. Keep up with the latest threat intelligence
Threat intelligence data from within the company, combined with information from outside sources, gives the SOC team insight into vulnerabilities and threats.
Signature updates, news feeds, incident reports, vulnerability alerts, and threat briefs are all examples of external cyber intelligence. SOC personnel can use integrated threat intelligence provided by SOC monitoring tools.
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