What is SOC Automation, and Why Is It Important?

With emergent and existing cyber threats, businesses are turning to security operations centres (SOCs) to run an efficient business devoid of threats and incidents. This is because SOCs can successfully monitor, analyze, detect, prioritize, and address any digital threat. However, this is made more efficient by using automation. Besides, with automation, security experts can work on the large volume of cyber threats received every day.

This is why most security teams are leveraging SOC automation. Essentially, SOC automation is a necessary tool for security experts to work efficiently.

Introduction to SOC Automation

Simply put, SOC (pronounced as SOCK) automation is the use of advanced and dedicated tools and techniques to perform repetitive tasks within the SOC framework. It involves the deployment of automation in every aspect of security operations, including monitoring, analyzing, response, and resolution.

SOC processes such as threat hunting, incidence reporting, threat mitigation, alert triage, and so on can be automated. In SOC automation, SOC teams use special tools, including AI and large language models (LLMs), to analyze large volumes of data, quickly identify security threats, and take mitigating steps.

What is a Security Operations Center (SOC)

SOC is the bedrock of every company’s security-protecting systems, people, and assets. It aims to monitor, detect, and respond to any threat to the business’s data, system, or network. SOC uses human knowledge, advanced technology, and data analytics to reduce and prevent cyber threats and incidents.

The security operations centre (SOC) houses threat hunters and security analysts who deploy advanced techniques and tools to help secure a company’s online assets. From monitoring cyber traffic, detecting potential threats, and responding to alerts to carrying out forensic research and risk assessment, the SOC is a crucial part of any company’s digital defence strategy.

Importance of SOC Automation

Over the years, security threats have become more advanced. The large volume of alerts, threats, and incidents is not something that SOC teams can keep up with. The manual processing involved leads to staff burnout and wrong diagnoses and responses. While SOC is great, it’s more efficient with automation.

SOC automation enables the security team to work more efficiently. With this, they can process large quantities of data, detect real threats promptly, have faster response time, and generally improve the security position of the company.

SOC automation helps teams focus on what’s more important, which is protecting the company’s digital assets.

For example, ai powered SOC automation solution may require automatically collating and analyzing threat intelligence alerts to determine threats impacting your business using metrics such as the types of risk addressed and the types of resources it relates to. While this can be done manually, SOC automation will help you get it done faster and with less staff required.

Advantages of Automating Cyber Security Processes

Automating security workflows benefits SOC teams in many ways. From better work satisfaction to greater efficiency and more security RIO, the benefits of SOC automation are endless.

Some of the advantages include:

• Promotes Accuracy and Consistency: Automating security workflows will help enforce adherence to security policies; by automatically performing tasks using established procedures, human errors are completely eliminated.
• Reduce Staff Workload: Rather than having analysts sit for several hours, manually reviewing incidents and alerts, automatizing SOC and other security workflows will enable these experts to focus on more important tasks.
• Enhance MTTR and MTTD: Opting for SOC automation will enable companies to discover and react quickly to security threats and incidents. This, in turn, improves metrics such as mean-time-to-respond and mean-time-to-detect.
• Ability to Scale: SOC automation enables SOC teams to handle the ever-increasing security demand without reducing quality. Hence, companies can quickly scale without fear of security vulnerability.
• Promotes Collaboration: To ensure efficient alert triage, there must be established communication between analysts and within the SOC team. Automation, therefore, makes it easier for the SOC team, HR, operations, IT, and other departments to collaborate. One way automation fosters Collaboration is through the incorporation of tools such as Slack. This way, SOC teams don’t miss out when a new staff member joins the company.
• Reduced Cost: With SOC automation, HR does not need to hire staff to do tasks that automation can handle. This helps the company save more and spend less.

Conclusion

Developing a SOC is a significant step toward a robust security framework, but more is needed. Companies should seek to automate SOC as much as possible. This way, the SOC team works faster, more efficiently, and is less tired. With AI-powered SOC automation solutions, organizations have a better cyber security position.