What is a SOC (Security Operations Center) and what are the benefits?
Cybersecurity is a fundamental element of any organisation that requires IT to remain functional, which is basically all organisations. Have you established a cybersecurity strategy for your organisation, and do you have a security team that continuously monitors for threats and vulnerabilities on your network? What would happen if you were the target of a cyberattack? One easy solution to implement into your organisation from Enterprise Defence is a Security Operations Center (SOC).
What exactly is SOC (Security Operations Center)?
A security operations center is a central function within an organisation. Its primary function is to continuously monitor, prevent and detect threats and vulnerabilities on your networks and devices, while also responding to cybersecurity incidents! The center comprises a team of information security experts, who are solely tasked with the responsibility of monitoring and analysing the security posture of an organisation on a full-time basis.
Cybercrime never sleeps, SOC systems run 24/7, all year round to monitor and protect your business infrastructure, applications, devices, network, and information stores, wherever those assets reside. The SOC can work with your IT department to manage your cybersecurity strategy for the organisation, maximizing your uptime. A single threat/ vulnerability on your network can put your business at risk. At Enterprise Defence, we plug the gaps in your IT security keeping you ahead of potential threats
How does a SOC (Security Operations Center) Function?
The primary function of the SOC is to provide complete all-inclusive monitoring and event log notifications in the event of a security breach. In the event of a security breach or threat, the SOC will triage the issue and then report it accordingly.
What services are provided by a SOC (Security Operations Center)?
Comprehensive incident response and investigation:
Getting to the root of a security threat or vulnerability in a timely manner can be difficult if you don’t have adequate staff monitoring your network 24/7. SOC technicians are monitoring your network in real time and will pre-empt any threats on your network while you sleep!
Indept logging:
Logs provide excellent visibility of issues as they arise in real time and what actions were taken against the issue. Having a large network infrastructure can make it easy for issues to fall through the loops, so this is a good way to avoid any oversight.
Extensive assessment:
During the discovery process, when a threat is found, the SOC team will investigate and analyse this by conducting an examination of all the tools on your network from applications to hardware, thus making sure they are all monitored around the clock.
Recovery and Remediation:
Data that has been lost or stolen can be retrieved, and an investigation into what assets have been comprised is conducted.
Compliance and Risk Management:
Management of industry recommended best practices on such things as ISO 27001, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) , General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),
What are the benefits of a SOC (Security Operations Center)?
Cybersecurity is constantly evolving and cyber-attacks are getting more sophisticated. Organisations are struggling to keep up with the heavy demands of compliance and regulations in this ever-changing industry. The value of a Security Operations Center (SOC), has huge benefits for organisations, and provides many added value benefits which include:
- Reduced cost and business impact of security incidents.
- Faster incident response times and practices
- Rapid detection of security events, such as threat detection ‘
- The resolution of all security threat alert notifications
- Constant and comprehensive centralised monitoring and analysis of your organisations systems for suspicious activity at a predictable monthly or annual cost.
Has your organisation thought about implementing a SOC, but you’re unsure how to build and manage an internal security team?
When considering how to implement this into your business it’s important to look at the benefits of an outsourced over an internal SOC, to see which will suit your organisation best.
Advantages of an outsourced SOC (Security Operations Center)
When an organisation chooses to outsource their SOC operations to a third-party provider like Enterprise Defence, they are placing the security obligation of the company over to the managed service provider. It is undeniable that there are many advantages and benefits for a company outsourcing their SOC operations
Reduced Cost: When we looked at internal SOC, setting this up would have a significant cost to an organisation and sometimes is not cost-effective to implement. Therefore when you choose to go for an outsourced SOC managed service provider like Enterprise Defence, all costings for tools and licences are built into the SOC operations that functions as a whole. Thus, full costings of this are not passed on, resulting in the organisation paying a lower fee when they choose to outsource their SOC operations.
Hands on Knowledge from Cybersecurity Specialists: We all know that there is a significant skills gap and shortage in the cybersecurity industry. Thus, this can make it difficult to get staff in house that have the required expertise to deal with a cybersecurity incident. When you have an outsourced managed service security provider, like Enterprise Defence, you get access to cybersecurity specialists at your fingertips.
No Security Staffing Shortage: As stated previously, there is a significant skills shortage in the cybersecurity industry, when you choose to go for a managed service security provider to implement your SOC operations, you do not have to worry about trying to retain staff to maintain SOC services.
Detection and Response 24 /7/ 365: An essential part of an outsourced SOC is 24/7 network monitoring. Cybercrime doesn’t stop when your business sleeps, incidents can occur at any time of the day. As part of its core service, an outsourced managed service security provider will have complete monitoring of your network day and night.
Up to date security solutions: Keeping up to date with the latest security solutions can be a struggle for organisations, as they try to say ahead of cyberthreats. It is a significant investment for any organisation, and for some, it’s not viable to maintain. An outsourced SOC will always have the most leading security solutions, keeping your organisation protected from cyber threats, and providing you with a much higher level of security maturity
Deployment of security solutions: When deploying SOC services, it is quite time consuming, as the configuration of tools is required, and requires someone with significant expertise to implement them. The advantage of an outsourced SOC means all of the infrastructures is already in place. The SOC would also be streamlined for deployment to organisations on their network, and this means you have the benefit of getting more security, faster! If your security needs grow, you can easily scale your SOC operations, this is not the case for internal SOC operations, as scalability will be based on cost and capacity
Service Level Agreements: When your organisation outsources its SOC operations to a third-party managed security service provider like Enterprise Defence, your terms of service will be managed by a service level agreement (SLAs). This will give you peace of mind, that your organisation will be assured of the high level of service and security it will receive, compared to managing an internal SOC operation with no SLA.
Did you know that outsourcing your SOC operations center to a managed security service provider also gives you a broader visibility on threats as a collective?
The benefits of having broader visibility on network threats is undeniably a great asset for any organisation. Your network infrastructure is the foundation for both internal and external communication within your organisation, thus been a critical aspect of your business!
Let’s have a look at the main benefits of having broader visibility on threats:
Data Intelligence
Your organisation can gain more insights on who and what is accessing the network giving you full visibility on what improvements may be required to keep ahead of threats! You have a clear picture of where your data is going so you will be able to spot any inconsistencies, as you can analyze that data, and follow trends, which in turn also help with plans for development on the network.
Reduce downtime
IT administrators and managers have full visibility to pinpoint the root of any issues that may occur rapidly on the network. This allows them to investigate any potential issues before they do become a big problem, instead of trying to blindly diagnose problems.
At Enterprise Defence, we have all the technology and tools, alongside award winning cyber security experts to manage cyber risks and threats to your organisation. Our security operations center runs 24/7/365, giving you the peace of mind that your organisation is completely monitored, even when you sleep, you will have continuous cybersecurity protection for your business. Transform your organisation with our security operations center to keep your most critical assets protected. Give Enterprise Defence a call today at 0818 900 000
