Source: securityboulevard.com – Author: Shriram Sharma
The US federal government and its international partners have provided the cybersecurity industry with a significant new resource. The new guidance from CISA and the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD’s ACSC), “Implementing SIEM and SOAR platforms,” offers an actionable assessment of the security automation landscape and the challenges that modern security operations centers (SOCs) face.
The report offers a clear definition of a Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform. According to the guidance, a SOAR “automates some of the response to detected cybersecurity events and incidents… by applying predefined ‘playbooks’… These automated actions do not replace human incident responders but can complement them”.
This guidance validates what security professionals have experienced for years: that SOAR platforms from vendors like Splunk, Swimlane, and Palo Alto XSOAR are not “set and forget” tools. They are platforms that require intensive, ongoing configuration and maintenance to function, a fact that underlines the limitations of a playbook-driven approach.
The Limitations of SOAR Playbooks and the Rise of the ASOC
The core challenges detailed in the CISA report, from the hidden costs of SIEM/SOAR to the operational drag of false positives, are rooted in this reliance on static playbooks. To effectively meet security guidance like the Essential Eight or CISA’s Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs), a new approach is needed. This is where a new category of SOC automation comes into play; the next step in the evolution from traditional SOAR to an Autonomous SOC (ASOC) solution like D3’s Morpheus.
- Traditional SOAR streamlines tasks by running the playbooks your team builds. The responsibility for investigation, correlation, and keeping those playbooks up-to-date remains with your analysts.
- Morpheus ASOC fully automates the Tier 1 and Tier 2 SOC workload. It autonomously creates dynamic, context-aware responses (playbooks) based on the unique attributes of every alert and incident. This eliminates the playbook burden and delivers more impact by fully investigating every alert.
- For Tier 3 analysts responsible for incident response and/or delivering MDR (Managed Detection and Response), Morpheus acts as an AI copilot, providing in-depth, cross-stack investigation, MITRE ATT&CK timelines, link analysis, and automated workflows for remediation and proactive threat hunting.
| CISA/ACSC-Identified Challenge | The SOAR Approach | The Morpheus ASOC Solution |
| Inaccurate Alerting & False Positives | Teams are often “operationally overwhelmed by false alerts,” or they miss real incidents because of ineffective alert rules. | Filters noise before it reaches analysts. Morpheus is an ASOC product designed to autonomously enrich, correlate, and prioritize alerts at scale, effectively “filtering out” false and benign positives from the queue. |
| Playbook Maintenance Burden | Requires personnel to “continually adjust” and test playbooks as the network and threat landscape change—an intensive and unending process. | Self-generating, adaptive playbooks. Morpheus autonomously creates a unique investigation and response workflow for every alert, tailored to your security stack and the specific threat, eliminating the manual maintenance burden. |
| Risk of Inappropriate Action | A key technical challenge is ensuring a SOAR “does not take action against regular network activity” or impede responders, which can “significantly disrupt service delivery”. | Offers AI-driven investigation with human-in-the-loop governance. Morpheus aligns with your policies and prompts your team for one-click approval before executing critical remediation steps, ensuring full control. |
| Complex, Costly Implementation | A proper SOAR implementation involves significant upfront and sustained costs, from data ingestion fees to retaining staff with “in-demand, specialist skills”. | Provides value in days, not quarters. Morpheus sits on top of your existing tools with 800+ integrations. It operates on alerts, not logs, which can help reduce the data costs associated with traditional SIEM/SOAR tools. |
AI Speed with Human Control: Solving the “Appropriate Action” Dilemma
The CISA guidance correctly identifies one of the biggest risks of automation: ensuring that the SOAR only takes appropriate action in response to actual cybersecurity incidents. An automated process that misinterprets an event can cause significant business disruption.
This is where the ASOC model demonstrates its value. Morpheus is designed to provide the speed of AI with the assurance of human oversight:
- AI-Guided Recommendations: For every confirmed threat, Morpheus generates clear incident summaries, actionable next steps, and a full-stack triage score to inform the response.
- One-Click Approval Prompts: For critical actions like isolating a host or revoking credentials, Morpheus pauses and waits for an analyst to give the go-ahead.
- Full Transparency: All AI-generated logic is presented in open YAML, and every decision can be reviewed, modified, and tested, ensuring your team retains complete control.
CISA’s recommendations for SOAR implementation offer a clear direction for the future of security automation. Continuing to invest time and resources in maintaining brittle playbooks is no longer the most effective strategy. The logical next step is to embrace a more intelligent, autonomous approach. Ready to explore the next evolution of security automation? Book a demo to see Morpheus in action. 
The post CISA’s New SOAR Guidance Shows Where Automation Must Go Next appeared first on D3 Security.
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from D3 Security authored by Shriram Sharma. Read the original post at: https://d3security.com/blog/cisa-soar-guidance-soc-automation/
Original Post URL: https://securityboulevard.com/2025/05/cisas-new-soar-guidance-shows-where-automation-must-go-next/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cisas-new-soar-guidance-shows-where-automation-must-go-next
Category & Tags: Incident Response,Security Bloggers Network,AI-SOC,Autonomous SOC,Cybersecurity,Morpheus AI,Security Automation – Incident Response,Security Bloggers Network,AI-SOC,Autonomous SOC,Cybersecurity,Morpheus AI,Security Automation
Views: 2
