Security operations center as a service (SOCaaS) is a cloud-based subscription model that allows controlled threat detection and response that offers top-of-the-line SOC solutions and capabilities to assist in filling the gaps of current security departments.
Which Cyber Threats are Observed by SOC as a Service?
As with a traditional, on-premises SOC, SOCaaS includes 24/7 monitoring for threat detection, prevention and analysis of your attack surface, including web traffic desktops, corporate networks servers, endpoint devices applications, databases, databases cloud infrastructure firewalls, threat intelligence, intrusion prevention, as well as Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems.
Cyberthreats are ransomware, denial of service (DoS) distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), malware, phishing, smishing, insider threats, credential theft, zero days and more.
Why do Organizations need Managed Services for Security Operations?
In their research report SOC Modernization and the role in the Role of XDR, Enterprise Strategy Group found that more than half (55 percent) require security services to ensure they can focus security personnel on security-related strategic initiatives. Others believe that managed service providers can accomplish things that the company cannot believe in, with 52% believing service providers can offer better security operations than the enterprise can. 49% saying a managed service provider can augment their SOC team while 42% admitting that their company does not possess the appropriate skills to conduct security operations.
What are the Benefits of SOC as an Service (SOCaaS)?
outsourcing information security management provides a handful of benefits, such as the following:
Cost reductions
More efficient detection and faster remediation, which helps streamline security incidents
Access to the most advanced security solutions
Decreased burdens on internal SecOps teams
Continuous monitoring
The speed of detection and response can help deliver high-confidence alerts while reducing fatigue from alerts.
Reducing turnover and reducing analyst burnout. Eliminating mundane tasks
Reduced complexity
Lower cyber risk
Increased agility and scalability of business
In contrast, issues arising from the legacy SOC environments could include:
A lack of clarity and context
More complex investigations
Systems that aren’t interoperable
There is no automation or orchestration
Incapacity to collect, process and contextualize threat intelligence data.
Alert fatigue/noise from high-volume, low-fidelity alerts of security controls
Additional advantages of SOCaaS are summarized as follows:
Continuous Protection
Security analysts can track alerts, events and indications of compromise (IoCs). Combine high-fidelity threat intelligence with useful threat and impact report reports. Analyze the results of analytics and threat detection across all data sources and generate high-fidelity leads for threat hunting.
Speedier response times
Faster response times help to reduce dwell time and improve both mean time to investigate (MTTI) along with mean time remediate (MTTR).
Security Prevention as well as Threat Hunting
SOCaaS allows teams to actively look at environments for threats techniques, strategies and procedures (TTPs) to help identify new vulnerabilities that may exist in your infrastructure.
Security Expertise and coverage
Although SOCs are available in a variety of forms and can include tasks and responsibilities that could include one or more of the following: SOC leader, incident responder and a Tier 3 security analyst(s). Additional specialized roles can include security engineers and vulnerability managers, criminal investigators, threat hunters and compliance auditors.
Respect of Compliance and Regulation Mandates
Critical SOC Monitoring capabilities of the SOC are essential to ensuring compliance for businesses, particularly complying with the regulations that require specific security monitoring functions and mechanisms, such as GDPR and CCPA.
The healthcare sector retail, financial and healthcare have their own set of standards to preventively reduce risk and navigate regulatory changes. They consist of HIPAA, FINRA and PCI to ensure the security of personal information and data from compromise.
Improve Security Teams
In addition to investing in security solutions and equipment, the primary factor in any successful SOC will be the human factor.
While machine learning and automation will certainly enhance overall outcomes like response times, precision and remediation — specifically for tasks that are repetitive and low-level recruiting, training and retaining security employees, including engineers, security analysts and architects, needs to be part of any SOC transformation strategy.
Things to Consider when deciding on a SOC
There are a variety of ways to making and running a SOC. In their paper Security Operations Center: A Systematic Study and Open Challenges, Manfred Vielberth, Fabian Boh, Ines Fichtinger and Gunther Pernul present a list of factors that influence SOC operating models and the different elements that be considered when deciding to establish one.
Strategy of the company: The overall business and IT strategy should be reviewed to determine which operating model best fits. A SOC strategy should be established prior to deciding on the appropriate operating mode.
Industry sector: The sector in which a company is primarily operating greatly influences the dimension of the SOC required.
Size: The size of a firm can also influence the decision since a small firm might not be able to establish and run a SOC on its own or might not even require the precise definition of an SOC.
Cost: The cost for implementing and maintaining the SOC need to be evaluated against the cost of outsourcing the security functions. Initially, setting up an internal SOC could be more costly but it might prove more cost-effective in the long over the long. Costs of finding, hiring and training SOC employees are a significant factor, especially as they might increase due to growing skill shortages and increasing demand from the market.
Time It takes a large amount of time to establish an SOC. Thus, aligning with the organizational plan and timelines is vital. Furthermore, the time required to set up an SOC must be compared with the time required for outsourcing it.
Regulations Based on the sector, various regulations have to be taken into consideration. Some might enforce the implementation of an operational SOC; others might forbid the outsourcing of SOC operations altogether or at a minimum to specific companies that don’t comply with respective regulations.
Privacy: Privacy also comes under the law and must be abided by when dealing with personal information.
In terms of availability, the requirements for availability must be considered. Most of the time the goal is to have a SOC operational 24/7, year-round.
Management support: Support for management is vital when setting up a specific SOC. If management isn’t committed, and the benefits of an SOC aren’t conveyed to upper management, then the team may not have the resources they require.
Integration: the capabilities and functions of an inside SOC require integration together with the other departments within IT, and in the case of an external SOC the service provider has integration to receive all the necessary data.
Data loss is a concern: The SOC is often an important place where a substantial amount of sensitive data is processed. Internal SOCs require to be extremely secured, whereas the external SOC requires a trusted provider which can ensure the data is protected from intellectual property theft, as well as accidental loss.
Expertise: It takes time and money to build up the expertise. The essential skills needed to operate an SOC are not difficult to locate. The recruitment and retention of staff is essential for internal SOCs. However, the necessary skills are already present for other external SOC providers. Particularly in the case of SOCs, having an insight into various companies may give SOC suppliers a benefit in terms of knowledge. However, companies should be aware that outsourcing reduces internal knowledge.
What is the reason an Managed SOC is important
Similar to hybrid and on-premises SOCs and hybrid SOCs, managed SOCs are available in a variety of types. Like their counterparts they are able to monitor an organization’s threats, including their IT infrastructure, devices, applications and endpoints (attack surface) and even data, for known and evolving vulnerabilities, threats and risks.
Managed SOC services are typically available in two types:
Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs) who manage SOCs in the cloud and utilize automated processes.
managed Detection and Response (MDR) that relies more on human involvement and goes beyond basic prevention to enable proactive and advanced activities like threat hunting.
A managed SOC option can ease the stress of maintaining and governing an internal SOC particularly for smaller to midsize companies.
It’s the same for hiring security professionals who can develop and run an SOC that is able to meet the ever-growing IT security standards and requirements. Engaging outside security experts allows companies to instantly increase the coverage of their organization and boost their security capabilities by having access to threat monitoring and research databases and can provide greater return upon investment (ROI) as compared to a local SOC.
As threat actors embrace their own versions of digital transformation, and making use of automation, organizations need security procedures that can keep up. Managed security providers provide an uninterrupted service and unbeatable coverage via service level agreements (SLAs) which define the extent and quality of services. This includes patches and software updates as they become available, or countermeasures against new threats are available for implementation.
Challenges of a Managed SOC
Although outsourcing security operations have numerous advantages, there are some limitations and challenges, which is why it’s crucial to conduct your due diligence when you compare solutions, services and SLAs.
Onboarding
Managed SOC providers typically rely to their internal security platform. Therefore, their solutions must be configured and deployed in the customer’s environment prior to the service provider can commence offering services. The transition during the onboarding process may be long and may lead to risks during this risky phase.
Sharing of vital Data
The SOC-as a service provider of an organization requires access to gain insights into the network of the company to discover and address potential threats. To achieve this, an organization has to transfer large amounts of sensitive data as well as intelligence to its service provider. However, the release of control over possibly sensitive information can increase the risk of security for enterprise data and risk management more challenging, exposing vulnerabilities during this phase.
Storing data outside of the Organization
Storing sensitive data about threats and analysis outside of the SOC poses a potential risk of both data leaks and data loss if the SOC’s cyber security is compromised or you choose to break up with that service. Although you are able to keep track of alerts for threats inside your organization, the bulk of the data is processed outside of the security perimeter, which restricts your ability to store and review the information about threats that have been detected and data breaches that could occur.
The cost of log delivery
SOC-as a-service providers usually operate their cybersecurity solutions on site by utilizing data feeds and network taps from their clients networks. This means that log files, along with other alert data are created and stored on the provider’s network and systems. The ability to access all log information from a managed SOC provider can be expensive for a business.
There isn’t a dedicated IT Security Team
The responsibility, roles and scope are different for each organization, creating a disconnect if you follow a one-size-fits-all model versus. making a team who is knowledgeable about the specific different environments and the infrastructure of every client. External SOC team might not provide the ability to customize services since some of them may be shared with different customers, which could negatively impact efficiencies.
Uncertain of the company’s specific business
In the course of serving multiple customers as well as sharing SOC resources managed SOC providers might miss issues in their environments without fully understanding an organisation’s processes and procedures to secure them.
Regulatory and Compliance Concerns
Regulations are rapidly getting more complicated and businesses must implement security measures and procedures to ensure and show compliance. While a managed SOC provider may offer support for regulatory compliance However, using an outside provider can complicate compliance requirements, and require trust in a service provider to perform the compliance requirements.
Limited options for customizing services
External SOC does not offer full customized services because they are shared by many clients. The lack of customization options could cause a decrease in efficiency across different departments and the inability to properly secure certain networks, endpoints and other components of security systems.
Overall, a dedicated SOC which provides companies with multiple benefits, including continuous network monitoring, centralized visibility as well as a decrease in cybersecurity costs and better collaboration means you aren’t going to be disappointed. Cybercriminals don’t rest, and neither should you.
