8 Vital Steps to Building a Security Operations Center (SOC)
With the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks, having the right cybersecurity technologies in place is crucial, but it’s just one part of the equation. How do you design a Security Operations Center (SOC) that is robust and covers all your bases?
Building a SOC from scratch is never easy — especially in today’s environment where there are 13 cyber attacks on average every second. That’s right. Every. Second. In 2023, that amounted to roughly 420 million attacks, according to Forescout Research – Vedere Labs.
Here are eight vital steps you can use to ensure your SOC is equipped to handle today’s complex threat landscape from the outset.
Step 1: Understand Your Security Goals
What are your main security objectives and desired outcomes?
Your SOC’s effectiveness starts with clear security goals. Are you aiming to reduce incident response times, improve threat detection accuracy, or ensure compliance with industry regulations? Defining these objectives allows you to align your SOC’s capabilities with your organization’s overall risk management strategy.
This step involves working closely with stakeholders to understand business priorities and establish metrics for success. Regularly reviewing and updating these goals will help your SOC stay aligned with evolving threats and business needs.
Step 2: Know Your Security Data
What security data do you have to work with? Understand what logs or data sources you need to protect and integrate within the SOC.
Data is the lifeblood of any SOC. Identify the types of data your SOC handles, including logs from network devices, servers, applications, and endpoints. Understand the quality, volume, and sources of this data. This step is critical because the effectiveness of your security tools, such as SIEM and EDR, depends heavily on the data they process. Evaluate whether you need additional data sources or improved data integration to provide a more comprehensive view of your environment.
Remember, more data isn’t always better—focus on obtaining the right data that supports actionable insights.
Step 3: Follow Cybersecurity Industry Best Practices
Assess your existing security processes and workflows for integration.
To ensure your SOC operates efficiently, it’s crucial to review your existing security processes. Document your workflows for incident detection, analysis, and response, and identify any gaps or inefficiencies. Standard operating procedures should be clear, repeatable, and aligned with industry best practices.
Implement frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK or NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework to benchmark your processes. Automation tools can play a significant role here, reducing manual workloads and standardizing responses to common threats.
“It’s important to be pragmatic and honest with your operating model, so that what you’re aiming for is proportionate and achievable,” says the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre in its SOC guidance. “That said, it should be developed with growth in mind so that you can adapt your capability as your requirements and threats will change over time. Like most architectures, it will evolve as you go, so don’t expect to stick to your original design, it’s a cumulative and iterative process. Remember what you’re designing is a target operating model and it may take years to implement it fully.”
Step 4: Assess Your Security Skills
Evaluate the skill level of your SOC team and identify any deficiencies that need to be addressed.
The tools and technologies in your SOC are only as effective as the people using them. Conduct a skills assessment of your SOC team to identify strengths and areas for improvement. Do you have the right expertise in threat hunting, incident response, and advanced analytics? Addressing skill gaps might involve additional training, hiring new talent, or leveraging managed security services for specialized tasks. Regular training and certification can also help your team keep up with the latest threat trends and technologies.
Step 5: Design Your Security Budget
Determine the level of investment you have to get the tools and technologies you need. Evaluate the total cost of ownership and the potential return on investment, and consider direct costs, such as licensing, and indirect costs, such as training and maintenance.
Budget constraints are a reality for every SOC. Outline your available budget and carefully consider the total cost of ownership for each technology, including licensing, implementation, training, and ongoing maintenance. Prioritize investments that provide the highest return on investment (ROI) in terms of risk reduction and operational efficiency. Be prepared to make a case for your budget needs to upper management by demonstrating how each expenditure will help achieve your defined security goals.
Step 6: Define Your Cybersecurity and SOC Technology Requirements
Look at your needs for: Ease of use, scalability, automation needs, comprehensive visibility, threat intelligence, compliance and reporting, and vendor support.
To choose the right technologies, you need to understand your SOC’s specific requirements. This includes areas include: ease of use, scalability and integration capabilities. Does your SOC need tools that provide advanced analytics, comprehensive visibility or automated response? Do you require solutions that meet specific compliance mandates?
By defining these requirements upfront, you can avoid costly mismatches and ensure that your technology stack supports your operational needs.
Step 7: Define Your SOC Technology Integration Needs
One of the most critical components to know is whether the technology will play well in your current ecosystem.
One of the most common challenges in a SOC is managing disparate tools that don’t communicate effectively. Integration is key to creating a unified and efficient SOC environment. Evaluate how new technologies will integrate with your existing tools and workflows. Look for platforms that offer open APIs, support industry standards and provide robust integration capabilities. Effective integration enhances visibility, improves data correlation and streamlines response efforts, ultimately reducing the risk of missed threats.
Step 8: Evaluate Cyber Insurance Requirements
Remember, obtaining cyber insurance today comes with specific requirements. Ensure you evaluate technologies that will make you eligible for coverage.
In today’s risk landscape, cyber insurance is becoming an essential part of an organization’s security strategy. However, obtaining coverage isn’t as simple as filling out a form—it comes with specific requirements. Evaluate these requirements and ensure that your chosen technologies and processes will help you qualify for coverage. This might include implementing specific security controls, maintaining certain compliance standards, or demonstrating the ability to quickly detect and respond to incidents.
Go deeper. Here are 11 Questions to Ask When Shifting Your SOC Strategy.
You can ensure that your SOC is not just a collection of tools, but a cohesive and strategic operation aligned with your organization’s security objectives. Remember, the goal is not just to deploy technology but to understand and build a SOC that continuously adapts to the evolving threat landscape.
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