SOC, SecOps, and SIEM: An Overview
One of the most significant challenges that organisations face today is how to stay secure in an increasingly connected world. Staying ahead of cyberattacks is a constant battle and the cost of protecting against cyberthreats is escalating.
Businesses are now investing in dedicated security teams to help them meet their needs, including risk management, compliance, audit, and governance to improve their security posture.
This guide covers what SOC, SecOps, and SIEM can do for your business and how you can leverage the experience and knowledge of a dedicated security service provider to protect your enterprise data and systems.
What is SOC?
A security operations centre (SOC) is a centralised facility where a team of IT security experts work to protect an organisation’s IT environment, by monitoring, detecting, analysing, and investigating security threats.
Devices, networks, operating systems, servers, databases, and applications are continuously monitored to mitigate security risks and watch for signs of a cybersecurity incident. The SOC team analyses data, enhances responses, and watches for new vulnerabilities.
What is SecOps?
Security operations, or SecOps, is the partnership between IT operations and IT security, which unifies tools, processes, and technology to keep organisations secure while mitigating security risk.
In the past, the goals of both security and operation teams conflicted. Operations would set up systems to achieve performance and uptime goals, while security was responsible for confirming compliance and regulatory requirements, putting defense practices in place, and removing security vulnerabilities. Security was seen as slowing down operations, rather than being part of the fundamental requirements of IT systems.
Combining security and operations allows security to be considered from the beginning, when solutions are sought and systems are being designed. Rather than the system being set up and then adding security later, it is done from the start with security always in mind. This allows companies to meet security goals much more efficiently.
What is SIEM?
SIEM stands for security information and event management and provides organisations with advanced threat detection, analytics and response.
SIEM combines security information management (SIM) and security event management (SEM) to provide real-time analysis of security alerts that are generated from log and event data from across an organisation’s applications, security tools, and host systems.
This data is brought together into a single, centralised platform, where correlation and statistical models can identify potential threats, alert SOC, and provide information to investigate them. SIEM provides organisations with the ability to detect security threats faster, which results in less time from detection to containment and eradication.
Integration of SOC, SecOps, and SIEM
Cybersecurity teams are responsible for safeguarding critical data from threats, every minute of every day. As cybercrime increases and malicious attackers utilise more advanced tactics such as automation, the threat becomes more real, especially as your company’s data collection and storage needs increase. Keeping this vital information protected requires preparation and protection in real-time.
SecOps teams are highly skilled experts and to keep security at the highest level, teams need to work in shifts 24/7 to log activity and reduce risks. However, the cost of setting up a SOC is a significant financial investment and can be a major obstacle in the way of proactively increasing security posture for many companies.
Fortunately, with cutting-edge cloud-based SIEM technology such as Microsoft Sentinel, and managed security service providers, enterprises can leverage the benefits of a SOC without the need for a dedicated facility and inhouse team. SIEM allows detection and prevention of threats quickly and effectively, and can be a cost-effective solution for enterprises without the burden of hiring additional inhouse resources and staff. For enterprises with compliance and regulatory requirements for security, SIEM software can be customised to ensure compliance requirements are met with ease.
SOC, SecOps, SIEM: Cybersecurity Challenges
If you are looking for a reliable partner to help you with your security operations, you need to be aware of the cybersecurity challenges faced by security operations centers (SOCs), security operations (SecOps), and security information and event management (SIEM) systems:
- A centralised SOC Team can have limited visibility to organisation systems, endpoints or encrypted data.
- A SOC Team receives immense volume of data and much of it might be insignificant for SIEM teams. The challenge is to filter out the white noise and keep a high level of efficiency and success.
- False positives and alert fatigue needs to be avoided, because it can consume a large amount of the SOC Teams time.
- Building and maintaining a SOC, SecOps, and SIEM can be expensive, especially for small and medium-sized businesses and the challenge is to balance the cost of security with the value of their data and systems.
- Compliance requirements can add complexity to SOC, SecOps and SIEM.
Finding a partner that can overcome these challenges and tailor the cybersecurity solutions and services to your needs should be your first priority.
Emerging Trends in SOC, SecOps, SIEM
Cloud-Based Security Monitoring
Benefits: Say goodbye to clunky on-premises infrastructure and embrace elastically scalable, geographically flexible, and cost-efficient security monitoring solutions in the cloud.
Leverages: AI and machine learning algorithms to automate and streamline incident response, freeing up valuable analyst time for deeper investigation and strategic planning.
Impact: Experience faster detection, analysis, and containment of threats, minimising downtime and human error while maximising analyst impact.
Threat Intelligence Sharing and Collaboration
Benefits: Break down information silos and leverage collective knowledge by sharing threat intelligence (indicators of compromise, attack patterns, etc.) with peers and security communities.
Methods: Tap into both internal threat detection logs and external sources like industry reports and cybercrime forums to gain a comprehensive understanding of the ever-evolving threat landscape.
Impact: Proactively identify and prioritise high-impact threats, facilitating swift and collaborative mitigation efforts across organisations, ultimately strengthening overall cyber resilience.
Zero Trust Architecture Implementation
Model: Shift from implicit trust to continuous verification with a security model that treats every entity (user, device, application) as untrusted until proven otherwise.
Benefits: Shrink your attack surface by minimising access privileges and enforcing granular, context-aware authorisation, making it much harder for attackers to move laterally within your network.
Impact: Dramatically improve data security and system integrity by minimising unauthorised access points and mitigating the damage potential of compromised credentials or insider threats.
Intelliworx: Your Trusted Partner for SOC, SecOps, SIEM Services
In this blog, we have explored the concepts and challenges of security operations centers (SOCs), security operations (SecOps), and security information and event management (SIEM) systems – all of which are essential components of any cybersecurity strategy. We have also discussed some of the emerging trends and challenges that can help you understand cybersecurity better and improve your security posture and resilience. By understanding the dynamics of SOC, SecOps, and SIEM, you can better protect your organisation from the ever-evolving cyber threats and achieve your business goals.
If you have any follow up questions, reach out to Intelliworx.
