Nowadays, data security has become a major concern among businesses as cyberattacks increase rapidly. The companies need to place emphasis on securing their technology assets as the attacks occur within seconds. Hence, the blog answers what is Security Operation Center?
Due to the budget constraints and competing priorities, many organizations can’t afford to employ a full-time in-house IT security team. In that case, a smart solution to this problem is to look at partnering with an SOC or Security Operation Center.
So, in this write-up, we will look at its definition and the basic overview of the Cyber Security Operation Center. So, let’s get started!
What is the Security Operation Center? Why Is It Important?
A Security Operation Center is a subscription or software-based service. It is a centralized function within the organization where people, processes, and technology continuously monitor and improve organization security.
The group of cybersecurity experts and engineers detect, prevent, analyze and respond to the cybersecurity incidents or threats & prevent such instances from happening.
It’s up to SOC to protect the organization’s business data from the email containing viruses and other threats accidentally accused by the workers.
The staff tracks unauthorized attempts to get inside the company’s network using security monitoring tools and other resources. The Security Operation Center responsibilities also consist of learning the patterns and adapting tactics used against the company.
Overall, the SOC focuses on the Security of information assets. They monitor & analyze activities on Networks, Databases, Servers, Applications, Websites and other systems looking for abnormal activities that affect the organization.
They are responsible for ensuring the potential security incident is correctly identified, analyzed, investigated and reported.
It is usually led by a manager and may include incident responders, analyst, threat hunter, and the incident response managers. The SOC reports to the CISO, who in turn report to the CIO or directly to the CEO.
Responsibilities of Security Operation Center
- Establishing Awareness of the Assets: It includes awareness of the tools, software, hardware, and technologies used with the SOC. It also focuses on making sure that all the assets are working properly and regularly updated. As high awareness may help maximize chances of detecting threats early on.
- Continuous Monitoring: Systems are examined 24/7 which allows SOCs to focus on reactive or proactive measures. In case, any suspicious activity detected, the engineers can take steps before they lead to substantial harm.
- Manage Logs & Responses: Security Operation Center responsibilities require all the activities and communication across the network or organization to be logged by the SOC. In case of a breach, it is essential to retrace your steps to find where something may have gone wrong.
- Ranking Alert: When an irregularity occurs, the job of an SOC team is to rank the cybersecurity threats in terms of potential damage. More closely it links to a potential network vulnerability, urgently the team will take action to eliminate the threat.
- Audit Compliance: All the team members must perform regular audits in Security Operation Center to confirm their compliance in the regions where they operate. The company wants to know that their data are being managed lawfully. Typically, one team member is in charge of educating and enforcing compliance to keep the data and system safe.
- Root Cause Analysis: After the incident is resolved the cybersecurity experts analyze the root cause of the problem and identify why it occurred in the first place. So, it can prevent future occurrences of the same incident.
After Security Operation Center Responsibilities – Learn About Organizational Model
- SOC Manager: The duty is to manage the personnel, budget, and programs with the SOC and report to the executive level, especially the chief information security officer (CISO). The SOC manager is the leader of the organization and the top-level responsibilities fall to them.
- Incident Responder: They do the initial evaluation of the attacks as the security alarm comes up. Implement whatever practices necessary to reduce and remove the threat.
- Forensic Responder: Security Operation Center employees do throughout the analysis and identifying the root cause and locating the source of all attacks. Also, gather data and preserve evidence.
- Compliance Auditor: The cybersecurity experts monitor the action of people and make sure that all the SOC process meet the compliance requirement.
- Cybersecurity Analyst: After analyzing and identifying the security events, these employees categorize the rank of the threat and increase potential threat alert.
- Threat Hunter: These are the proactive or the detective of the SOC team. They review data that is collected by the SOC to identify threats that are hardest to detect and find clues.
7 Business Benefits of the Security Operation Center
With SOC-as-a-service, companies get the protection against the network attacks. Any company that connects its computer to the internet could have its data stolen or their network might get infected by malicious activities.
However, this service takes security to the next level with the protection layer against cyberattacks. If implemented correctly, a security operation center can provide the following benefits:
- Monitoring and analysis of suspicious activity
- Detects faults within network and applications
- Keep security tools and patches up to date
- Accessing new Software for vulnerabilities
- Customers & employees feel comfortable while sharing crucial data
- Transparency and control over security operations
- Track trends related to different cyber threats
Final Say!!
To overcome the cybersecurity attacks from the organization network, the SOC technique is great. Therefore, we have discussed what is Security Operation Center & its working to get an in-depth idea.