The Evolution of SOC: Harnessing Data, AI and Automation – Source: www.cyberdefensemagazine.com

The modern Security Operations Center (SOC) faces an ever-growing tide of data, fueled by the explosion of connected devices, cloud migration, and increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks while the growing impact of automation and artificial intelligence remains vital to achieving a robust and efficient SOC. SOC teams should aim to shift from conventional approaches filled with constraints and limitations; and actively look for opportunities to optimize processes, capabilities and outcomes. This article explores how these technologies can transform the SOC, enabling faster threat detection, incident response, and ultimately, a more proactive security operation.

Data: The Fuel of Modern Security

Data is key to providing visibility into any environment and vital for other SOC functions such as threat intelligence, analytics and incident response. Data originates from various sources, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), endpoint security tools, collaboration tools, directory services and cloud workloads. However, the sheer volume and complexity of this data can overwhelm some (traditional) systems while collecting everything is also considered a waste of time, money and resources. It is worth saying that logging too little restraints audit capacity and effective security monitoring. You want to ensure that you have all the data you need to act against risks and threats in your environment, while also ensuring that you’re not paying to ingest more data than you need. To balance the need for proper level of visibility into the environment and ingesting data within the scope of what is required, it is paramount to prioritize critical assets, conduct log curation and configure the SIEMs to collect the most vital things.

AI: Augmenting Human Expertise

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a powerful tool to address the data deluge. AI algorithms can sift through massive datasets in real time, identifying patterns and anomalies that might escape human observation while generative AI models can be leveraged for advanced analysis of security incidents and malicious software. SOC teams face a mounting challenge with Cloudflare recent application security report claiming that around 7% of the global internet traffic is malicious and CVEs exploited as fast as 22 minutes after a proof-of-concept is made available. An AI-powered SOC could be transformative in this regard by supercharging threat detection and incident response. This allows SOC analysts to focus on other key tasks, which require actual human efforts, therefore, improving efficiency and productivity.

Automation: Streamlining Security Operations

Automation plays a vital role in enhancing SOC efficiency and can significantly transform many responsibilities and functions. Some repetitive tasks in incident response, threat intelligence gathering, and vulnerability scanning can be automated, freeing up analysts to focus on more complex and strategic tasks.

Automated workflows could be created on most modern security tools, such as SIEMs, EDRs, to perform various actions such as responding to threats, isolating devices, resolving known benign alerts and disabling user accounts. Automation can also be utilized in high-level situations such as the integration of threat intelligence feeds into SIEM solutions and monitoring of the dark web for organisation’s sensitive data. SIEM tools, which is at the heart of security operations, have continued to be transformed for increased capabilities and this includes the infusion of SOAR features into modern SIEM tools.

Conclusion

Data, AI, and automation are not just trends; they are foundational pillars for a future-proof SOC. By harnessing these technologies, organizations can enhance threat detection, incident response, and achieve a more resilient/proactive security stance. While human inputs and operational procedures remain crucial, the impact of automation and artificial intelligence to process large data cannot be overemphasized. This helps to streamline security operations and improve the speed of threat detection and response.

About the Author

Abiodun Adegbola is a Security Engineer at Systal Technology Solutions, a global specialist in managed network, cloud and security services. He brings over seven years of various experience into the global security operations team within Systal. He is certified across various technologies and holds a BTech in Computer Engineering from LAUTECH, Nigeria and MSc in Advanced Security & Digital Forensics from Edinburgh Napier University, UK. Abiodun can be reached online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/abiodunadegbola/ and at company website https://systaltech.com/