Tuesday, April 7, 2020

HOW A SECURITY OPERATIONS CENTER WORKS & THERE BEST PRACTICES

Rather than focus on developing a security strategy, designing a security architecture, or implementing protection measures, the SOC team is responsible for the ongoing operational component of the company's information security. The security operations center team is comprised primarily of security analysts who work together to detect, analyze, respond to, report, and prevent cyber security incidents. Additional features of some SOCs may include advanced forensics, crypto analysis, and reverse engineering of malware to analyze incidents.

The first step in establishing an organization's SOC is to clearly define a strategy that incorporates the specific business objectives of various departments, as well as the contributions and support of leaders. Once the strategy has been developed, the necessary infrastructure must be implemented to support it. Pierluigi Paganini, director of information security at Bit4Id, says that a typical SOC infrastructure includes firewalls, IPS / IDS, gap detection solutions, probes, and security information and event management (SIEM). The technology must be in place to collect data through data streams, telemetry, packet capture, syslog, and other methods, so that the SOC team can correlate and analyze data activity. The security operations center also monitors networks and endpoints to detect vulnerabilities, protect sensitive data, and comply with industry or government regulations.


ADVANTAGES OF HAVING A SECURITY OPERATIONS CENTER

The main benefit of having a security operations center is to improve the detection of security incidents through continuous monitoring and analysis of data activity. When analyzing this activity on an organization's networks, terminals, servers and databases throughout the day, SOC teams are essential to ensure rapid detection and response to security incidents. 24/7 surveillance, provided by a SOC, gives organizations an advantage in defending themselves against incidents and intrusions, regardless of origin, time of day or type of attack. The difference between attacker engagement time and company detection time is well documented in Verizon's annual data breach investigation report, and having a security operations center helps organizations to close this gap and stay on top of the threats facing their environment.

BEST PRACTICES TO MANAGE A SECURITY OPERATIONS CENTER

Many security officials focus more on the human element than the technological element to "assess and mitigate threats directly, rather than relying on a script." SOC agents constantly manage known and existing threats, while seeking to identify emerging risks. They also meet the needs of companies and customers and respect their level of risk tolerance. While technology systems like firewalls or IPS can prevent basic attacks, human analysis is needed to end major incidents.

For best results, the SOC should monitor the latest threat information and take advantage of that information to improve internal detection and defense mechanisms. As the InfoSec Institute points out, SOC consumes data within the organization and correlates it with information from various external sources that provide an overview of threats and vulnerabilities. This external cyber intelligence includes news sources, signature updates, incident reports, threat notes, and vulnerability alerts that help the SOC track cyber threats. SOC staff must constantly feed threat information into SOC's monitoring tools to track threats, and SOC must have processes in place to distinguish real threats from non-threats.

Truly effective SOCs use security automation to be effective and efficient. By associating highly qualified security analysts with security automation, organizations increase their analytical power to improve security measures and better defend themselves against data breaches and cyber attacks. Many organizations that do not have the internal resources to make this change are turning to managed security service providers who provide SOC services.








1 comment:

  1. Today Jobs is an eBook that was written by a successful Internet marketer, Jason Cohen. It is the latest book on the topic of Internet marketing.
    Jason's goal with Todayjobs is to provide all the information that you need to know about starting an Internet business and marketing it. If you are a newbie at the Internet, then you will find this book very beneficial to your business. There are many great tips that you can apply to your business that will help you make more money.

    ReplyDelete