Modern SOC Series II: six meaningful benefits of modernising SOCs

The growing number and complexity of threats, combined with the expansion of the attack surface, complicate the primary purpose of a Security Operations Centre (SOC): detecting, analysing, and responding to security incidents. These factors generate exponential growth in data volume and security alerts, which teams need more resources to address.

31% of SOC leaders and experts state that information overload is a significant pain point, and 34% cite increased workload as the leading cause of burnout. Moreover, 31% point to an inability to prioritise threats due to the high volume of alerts, which are mostly false and triggered by a lack of context. In addition, 34% of professionals experience difficulties operating across too many tools, which impacts security efficiency, according to data published by CSO.

SOC teams need to modernise to tackle these issues by using automation to reduce the number of alerts. This optimises resources and frees up the teams’ time to develop processes that enable a proactive approach to detection and response. A proactive approach can detect and respond to threats that infiltrate the network unseen by existing security controls, taking action before damage occurs or becomes more serious.

The advantages of modernising SOCs 

In general terms, it enables the team to perform their work efficiently and supports them in accomplishing their tasks. But, to understand what a modern SOC means for an organisation, we need to understand the six key benefits it offers companies:

1. It reduces incident detection time: The average time it takes companies to detect a malicious threat on their systems is 212 days. However, with continuous monitoring, it is possible to reduce this timeframe by identifying and investigating abnormal activity. To perform early detection, the team must gain contextualised visibility into what is happening, correlating it with up-to-date, in-depth knowledge of the techniques used by threats to understand and respond quickly. Automating detection, prioritisation and investigation helps prevent the team from becoming overwhelmed by the number of alerts and enables them to analyse the anomalous activities that require their attention.
2. It reduces response time and costs associated with security incidents: IBM data reveals that the containment time for a security incident is about 75 days and costs about $4.35 million. Through constant monitoring and detection during the early stages of the intrusion, the SOC can mitigate the attack, which decreases the economic and reputational impact due to business downtime, cost of return to normalcy, loss of data, or lawsuits. The IBM study also indicates that attacked companies with an incident response team could save 58% of the costs associated with a major attack.
3. It reduces the risk of cyberattacks and improves cyber resilience: Once the incident is under control, analysing the assets impacted, the vulnerabilities used, and the security controls circumvented will provide critical information to take actions to improve the systems through shrinking the attack surface and improving measures and processes associated with the organisation’s security programmes. This enables an organisation to anticipate new threats more effectively and be more resilient to future cyberattacks.
4. It provides a holistic approach to enterprise security: A Security Brief article states that 62% of global IT and business leaders report blind spots that hinder security and estimate that they have only 62% visibility into their attack surface. In this regard, the processes and practices of a modern SOC help detect threats earlier and even prevent further attacks from occurring by providing greater visibility into the root cause, course of actions, and systems impacted during the incident in a holistic manner.
5. It improves communication within the team and with other departments in the company: The lack of collaboration between the parties involved in the detection, investigation, and response process is one of the main obstacles to obtaining better results from security programmes. Working in silos creates communication gaps that lead to delays in threat detection and slow, disjointed response processes that can seriously affect the organisation. Creating a centralised, intuitive, and collaborative hub allows security team members and others involved when an incident occurs to work more efficiently, as all workflows are interconnected.
6. It enhances the company’s reputation: Having a dedicated modern SOC demonstrates that the company takes the security and privacy of the data it handles very seriously. This generates trust among employees, customers, and partners, who will have no doubts about protecting their data when they have to share it with the organisation.