5 Considerations When Implementing A SOC Program

As cyberattacks become more sophisticated than ever, establishing a security operations center (SOC) has become essential. The SOC is a central IT center from where you can coordinate your cybersecurity response.

Thanks to the varied nature of threats these days, many companies find it useful to implement a variety of third party solutions that specialize in mitigating different risks. The problem with this approach is the lack of integration between the various solutions. A SOC platform will help you manage all of these tools within a central platform.

Many companies go wrong when implementing a SOC. Here are 5 things you need to keep in mind.

Qualified Resources

One of the biggest problems that organizations face is a lack of qualified staff and resources to help them deal with their cybersecurity concerns. As businesses have migrated to the digital world, cybersecurity demand has increased. However, the supply of qualified professionals is low.

Even if you manage to find qualified people to run the show, you need to ensure that they update their knowledge constantly with regards to security best practices. Cybersecurity isn’t a static function anymore. You cannot buy a few tools and hope they do the job. You have to constantly upgrade and reassess everything you know.

The best hiring model you can implement is to begin by hiring a security architect. Security architects will help you evaluate business requirements and translate them into security challenges that your SOC will have to monitor. As you’d expect, there is a shortage of qualified security architects.

If you can’t locate a suitable person for employment, consider hiring a consultant who can come in and design a program for you. Staff your team with the right mix of people beginning in the field and those who are more experienced. You don’t want your team to be top-heavy since this would be a waste of resources.

Choose the Right Tech

Often, companies choose their SOC technology before they staff their team. This is putting the cart before the horse. As great as technology is, it isn’t going to run everything by itself. Staff your team and take their opinion into account when choosing a platform.

There are two ways you could go about this. The first is to use a single cybersecurity platform that offers end-to-end protection. The platform acts as a SOC since all of your cybersecurity needs are contained within it. However, this approach leaves you vulnerable to attacks from vectors that your solution provider doesn’t specialize in.

A better approach is to use best of breed solutions that specialize in different vectors. You’ll mitigate all forms of risk and can integrate the alerts from these platforms into a single SOC platform. When choosing a SOC platform make sure it provides you with a concise read of all the threats you face.

You don’t want your team to toggle through various tabs to get a full picture. Evaluate a platform of your choice during the demo period and have your team work with it to decide whether it’s worth an investment.

Impact on Governance and Risk

Thanks to the rapid rise of data collection, every company is subject to regulation. Your SOC should align closely with your governance policies and give you a clear picture of the risks you face currently. A good SOC platform will instantly give you a read on the risks you face by allowing you to run security analytics on different datasets.

Many companies underestimate the role their SOC plays in establishing governance. Your SOC is a central command from where you can enforce data standards and other internal policies. Your SOC should also allow you to map the risk of violation of regulatory policies and the mitigating actions you need to take.

Make it a point to evaluate your governance policy regularly and run reports on your SOC to check whether you’re in full compliance.

Organizational Compliance and Audit

While governance deals with internal policies, you need to pay attention to external regulatory compliance as well. Depending on the industry your business is in, you’ll have to satisfy different compliance and incident report requirements.

Make sure your SOC platform is aligned with your business goals in this regard. Running reports to file with authorities should be simple and should be a major task unto themselves. Your SOC team shouldn’t have to spend days collecting relevant data for such reports. This is a red flag that you should watch out for.

If you’re working with a third party solution provider, make sure they understand your compliance requirements and are capable of helping you generate reports at whatever frequency you need to satisfy your regulators.

Build Versus Buy

Thie build versus buy debate is ever-present in the cybersecurity world. On one hand, you can build an in-house platform using resources that know your system well. However, you can buy third party expertise and leverage that to create a state-of-the-art SOC platform.

Companies such as Cyrebro specialize in cybersecurity SOC solutions and can give you complete visibility on your cybersecurity operations. Cyrebro’s platform also allows you to drill down into an issue and monitor organization-wide security risk trends. The platform’s report generator can be customized to generate compliance-ready reports or interactive visual dashboards that your team can use to instantly mitigate risks.

Ultimately, the choice is yours. Buying a solution will allow you to quickly leverage expertise and have an SOC running quickly. However, make sure your solutions provider understands your business’ goals and risks thoroughly.

A Simple Process

Many organizations complicate the SOC creation process. Follow these 5 steps, and you’ll have a robust platform running in no time. Remember to always tie your SOC monitoring goals to your business goals. After all, they’re the ones that matter the most.