Organisations turn to a SOC (security operations centre) service for varying reasons depending on their business needs and capabilities. That said, there are common challenges we see customers faced with that are largely solved by the move to a SOC from an in-house security provision.
Whether a SOC is right for you will depend on your existing cyber security environment, your requirements, the makeup of your business, and where your organisation is on the security maturity graph. But if you’re experiencing these struggles within your cyber security team, you may wish to consider a SOC as a service.
Five Key Security Challenges and a SOC's Solution
Incident Response Capability
The Challenge
As security professionals, we understand that try as we might, security incidents will occur. The concern comes when incident response is slow, inconsistent, or unreliable. No matter your security preparedness, if you’re unable to ensure a rapid response to incoming threats, you’re vulnerable.
A SOC’s Solution
With the majority of cyber attacks, the quicker the
response, the more restrained the business impact. SOCs have the power to
employ vast defence capabilities, often utilising a combination of automation,
24/7 monitoring and containment alongside on-hand certified experts to deliver
a rapid incident response – the human factor.
Defending Unlimited Threats with a Limited Budget
The Challenge
Monitoring, detection, assessment, and remediation tools are costly. If your organisation is experiencing growth, undergoing a digital transformation, or seeing significant changes (be that to operations, or regulatory obligations and compliance) there can be pressure to continue investing in security solutions to keep pace and remain secure.
A SOC’s Solution
SOCs can provide access to a wide variety of world-class tools at a comparative fraction of the price that it would cost to deploy the same solutions and the staff necessary to effectively manage them in-house. This helps to keep costs fixed and prevent the risk of vendor sprawl and its associated challenges.
Resourcing the Expertise
The Challenge
Largely related to budget constraints, but not entirely. The global cyber security industry is currently facing an alarming skills gap, with a worker shortage of over 3.4 million. This lack of qualified talent is causing significant challenges in recruiting and retaining, leaving concerning knowledge and resource gaps across security teams – and the bad actors know this only too well.
A SOC’s Solution
A quality SOC should act as an extension of your existing security team, providing reliable access to the expertise you don’t have internally without the need to worry about retaining in-demand staff or recruiting new team members should your security stack expand.
Visibility and Business Security Intelligence
The Challenge
The majority of cyber security threats are a result of accidental behaviour, system misuse and poorly configured controls. To maintain a secure business security posture, these risks need to be identified and remediated before they can cause an issue – visibility and contextually informed intelligence is key.
A SOC’s Solution
Once a SOC is given full visibility, analysts are able to take a bird’s eye view of your security stack and (increasingly through a combination of granular analysis and machine learning) identify risk behaviours and potential misconfigurations to target threats at the source, providing proactive rather than reactive security.
Compliance or Reputational Demands
The Challenge
For many organisations, industry-specific regulations necessitate a more comprehensive security provision than is practical or feasible in-house.
A SOC’s Solution
Those concerned about reputational damage following a potential breach, or those obligated to meet compliance standards which outstrip the capabilities of in-house teams, often find a SOC as a service the most appropriate solution. While your organisation may only require a small team of IT professionals for day-to-day operations, there may be strict requirements on your data security, for example. In such cases, a SOC is an excellent way to outsource the task to meet your specific demands.
If these security challenges sound all too familiar, it may be worth considering a move to a SOC service. Threatscape’s range of managed security services, powered by SecurityHQ, offer a scalable, compliant, and cost-effective solution to the need for 24×7 cyber vigilance.
Explore our datasheets to learn how our Managed Security Services can protect your organisation around the clock.
