What is a Security Operations Center (SOC)

Find out how security operations centers work and why many organizations rely on SOCs as a valuable resource for detecting security incidents.

noc vs soc

DEFINITION OF THE CENTER FOR SAFETY OPERATIONS

A security operations center (SOC) is a facility that houses an information security team responsible for the ongoing monitoring and analysis of an organization's security posture. The objective of the SOC team is to detect, analyze and respond to cyber security incidents through a combination of technological solutions and a robust set of processes. Security operations centers often have security analysts and engineers, as well as managers who oversee security operations. The SOC team works closely with the organisation's incident response teams to ensure that security concerns are resolved quickly upon discovery.

Security operations centers monitor and analyze activity on networks, servers, terminals, databases, applications, websites and other systems, looking for abnormal activity that may indicate a security incident. security or compromise. The SOC is responsible for ensuring that any security incidents are correctly identified, analyzed, defended, investigated and reported.

Security Operations Center (SOC)

A Security Operations Center (SOC) is responsible for monitoring, analyzing and protecting the organization from cyber attacks. At SOC level, Internet traffic, corporate networks (CAN), desktops, servers, terminals, databases, applications and other systems are constantly monitored for signs of a security incident. SOC staff may work with other teams or departments, but generally have high level skills in information technology and cybersecurity. In addition, most SOCs operate 24 hours a day, while employees work shifts to achieve consistent recording activities and mitigate threats.

Before establishing a SOC, an organization must define its cybersecurity strategy that aligns with current business objectives and issues. Department leaders will refer to a risk assessment that will focus on what will be needed to uphold the company's mission and then provide information on the goals to be achieved, the infrastructure and tools necessary to achieve those goals as well. like the kinds of skills needed for staff.

SOC creation has become more important to large organizations as security breaches increase and the cost associated with data loss is often high. An effective SOC not only minimizes the cost of a data breach by quickly responding to intrusions, but also by constantly improving detection and prevention practices.

SOCs are most commonly found in the health, education, finance, electronic commerce, government, military operations and advanced technology sectors. Companies that rely on large amounts of highly sensitive data and have many financial resources should consider developing a SOC.

What to do if you experience a security breach

 

Customers of large enterprises need to be safe by taking quick action if there is a security breach or their computer is compromised. A breach of security on one account means that other accounts can also be at risk, especially if other accounts share passwords or trade regularly.

security breach meaning

 

We will notify all banks and financial institutions holding your account if there may be any violations in your financial information.

Change passwords for all accounts. If your account has a security question and answer or PIN code attached to it, you'll also need to change it.

You may want to consider a loan freeze. This will help prevent others from using your data for identity theft and borrowing on your behalf.

Check your credit report to see if someone has filed a debt using your information.

Find out exactly what data might have been stolen. This gives an idea of ​​the seriousness of the situation. For example, if your tax information and SSN are stolen, you need to take action quickly to ensure that your identity is not stolen. This is more serious than losing your credit card information.

Please do not directly respond to the company's request to provide personal data after a data breach. It could be a social engineering attack. Take the time to read the news, check the company website, or call the customer service line to see if the claim is legitimate.

Beware of other social engineering attacks. For example, a criminal who has access to a hotel account without financial data can call a customer and ask for feedback on their last stay. When the call is over, the trust criminal can refund the parking fee and request the customer's card number for payment. If the phone is convincing, most customers will not think twice about providing these details.

Keep track of your account for signs of new activity. If you find a transaction you don't know, handle it immediately

Network Security Assessment Methodology

The best practice assessment methodology used by ambitious attackers and network security consultants includes four different high-level components:

Network discovery to identify IP networks and hosts of interest

Batch network scanning and research to identify potentially vulnerable hosts

Investigation of vulnerabilities and further manual network exploration

Exploiting vulnerabilities and bypassing security mechanisms

network security assessment

This complete methodology pertains to Internet-based networks that are blindly tested with limited target information (such as a single DNS domain name). If a consultant is commissioned to evaluate a particular block of IP domains, he or she will skip the initial network enumeration and begin mass network scanning and investigation of vulnerabilities.

Internet Host and Network Enumeration

Various discovery techniques are used to query open sources to identify hosts and networks of interest. These open sources include web and newsgroup search engines, WHOIS databases, and DNS nameservers. By querying these sources, attackers can obtain useful data about the structure of the target network from the Internet, often without actually scanning the network or necessarily directly researching it.

Initial reconnaissance is crucial because it can reveal hosts that are not properly fortified against attacks. While a determined attacker spends time identifying peripheral networks and hosts, companies and organizations concentrate their efforts on protecting obvious public systems (such as public web and mail servers) and often neglect unpopular hosts and networks.

It might be good for a determined attacker to also enumerate the networks of third-party vendors and partners who in turn have access to the target network area. Today, such third parties often have private connections to internal corporate network domains via VPN tunnels and other connections.

Key pieces of information gathered through initial discovery include details of Internet-based network blocks, internal IP addresses collected from DNS servers, insight into the target organization's DNS structure (including domain names, subdomains, and hostnames) and details of relationships between them. physical locations.

This information is then used to further evaluate the target network area and perform structured aggregated network scanning and research exercises to investigate potential vulnerabilities. Further discovery includes extracting user details, including email addresses, phone numbers, and office addresses.

What is Managed service delivery model

IT managers are under constant pressure to reduce costs while meeting operational expectations, security requirements, and performance improvement requirements. To solve this problem, they have a managed service provider, also known as an MSP, which they call a managed service delivery model.

MSPs take a holistic approach to IT services and offer a much higher standard than most organizations can achieve in-house. In addition, best-in-class providers provide customers with ongoing maintenance and management of their existing infrastructure and service with end-user support.

 

services delivery model

Why do you need it?

Today's IT managers are under tremendous pressure to keep costs low while meeting their business' performance, operational expectations and security requirements. Most financial experts recommend moving to predictable cost models such as managed services in these circumstances. Companies that provide these services are called Managed Service Providers (MSPs). The best time to meet with your MSP is when you set strategic goals for the future or deploy new services in your IT environment. In many cases, company employees may not have experience with new technologies or be unable to maintain new services or applications. Hiring contractors to provide services is more expensive when budgets are stagnant or tight and can provide less value in supporting a company's ever-growing performance goals. This generally applies equally to small businesses and large businesses.

The managed service model has evolved significantly over time and experienced providers have perfected their offerings. It is very effective for businesses such as:

Rely on your IT infrastructure to adequately support your daily business operations.

We do not have enough trained personnel or time to formally carry out proper maintenance, upgrades and repairs.

To provide a high level of service to your business, you want to pay a flat monthly fee for the service.

For most business services, IT supports the business engine. From software to hardware and the technology needed to keep services running, companies can invest significant capital to build and maintain in-house support staff. However, given the maturity of the managed services model and the transition to virtualization and the cloud, the need for onsite IT staff may be limited to exceptions where operational sensitivity is justified. To better predict IT costs amid uncertain requirements, companies may consider leveraging managed services specialists.

MSPs often price their services on a subscription-based model. Depending on the service you choose, pricing is usually based on the number of units priced for the different package categories. Some provide on-site customer support as needed. Basic services often start out as monitoring services that identify potential problems that you can fix yourself. At the other end of the spectrum, service providers offer comprehensive managed services that cover everything from alerts to troubleshooting.

Who works in a SOC

 

The SOC Network is comprised of exceptionally talented security experts and designers, alongside chiefs who guarantee everything is running easily. These are experts prepared explicitly to screen and oversee security dangers. In addition to the fact that they are gifted in utilizing an assortment of security apparatuses, they realize explicit procedures to follow if the framework is penetrated. 

noc vs soc

Most SOCs receive various leveled way to deal with oversee security issues, where investigators and specialists are sorted dependent on their range of abilities and experience. An average group may be organized something like this: 

Level 1: The main line of occurrence responders. These security experts watch for alarms and decide each ready's earnestness just as when to move it up to Level 2. Level 1 workforce may likewise oversee security apparatuses and run standard reports. 

Level 2: This workforce normally has more skill, so they can rapidly get to the foundation of the issue and survey which some portion of the framework is enduring an onslaught. They will follow methods to remediate the issue and fix any aftermath, just as banner issues for extra examination. 

Level 3: At this level, the workforce comprises of elevated level master security examiners who are effectively looking for vulnerabilities inside the system. They will utilize propelled risk discovery apparatuses to analyze shortcomings and make proposals for improving the association's general security. Inside this gathering, you may likewise discover masters, for example, legal agents, consistent examiners or cybersecurity experts. 

Level 4: This level comprises of significant level administrators and boss officials with the longest stretches of understanding. This gathering regulates all SOC group exercises and is answerable for recruiting and preparing, in addition to assessing individual and in general execution. Level 4s stage in during emergencies, and, explicitly, fill in as the contact between the SOC group and the remainder of the association. They are likewise liable for guaranteeing consistency with association, industry and government guidelines.

By what method can SIEM improve your SOC? 

SIEM makes the SOC increasingly compelling at making sure about your association. Top security investigators — even those with the most developed arrangements — can't audit the perpetual stream of information line by line to find malignant exercises, and that is the place SIEM can be a distinct advantage. 

As we've referenced, a SIEM gathers and composes all the information originating from different sources inside your system and offers your SOC group bits of knowledge with the goal that they can rapidly distinguish and react to inward and outside assaults, improve danger the board, limit hazard, and increase association-wide perceivability and security insight. 

SIEM is basic for SOC errands, for example, observing, episode reaction, log the board, consistent detailing, and arrangement implementation. Its log the board capacities alone make it a vital apparatus for any SOC. SIEM can parse through enormous groups of security information originating from a huge number of sources — in negligible seconds — to discover unordinary conduct and malignant movement and stop it consequently. Quite a bit of that movement goes undetected without the SIEM. 

The SIEM enables the SOC to arrange the logs and make decides that empower computerization and can definitely diminish bogus alarms. Security investigators are opened up to concentrate on the genuine dangers. Moreover, the SIEM can offer powerful detailing that assists with both measurable examinations and consistent necessities.

What is Firewall

Firewalls are a type of cybersecurity tool used to filter traffic on a network. A firewall can be used to isolate network nodes from external traffic sources, internal traffic sources or certain applications. Firewalls can be software, hardware, or cloud-based, and each type of firewall has its own pros and cons.

The main purpose of the firewall is to block malicious traffic requests and data packets while allowing legitimate traffic.

Different Types of Firewalls

Types of firewall

Firewall types can be divided into several categories depending on their overall nature and how they work. Here are 8 types of firewalls.

packet filtering firewall

Circuit level gateway

Stateful firewall

Application-level gateway (i.e. proxy firewall)

Next generation firewall

Software firewall

Hardware firewall

cloud firewall

Note: The last three bullet points list how to provide firewall functionality, not the type of firewall architecture.

How do these firewalls work? Which is best for your cybersecurity needs?

Here are some brief explanations:

Packet filtering firewall

Firewall architecture type

Packet filtering firewalls, the most "basic" and oldest type of firewall architecture, create checkpoints on traffic routers or switches by default. The firewall performs a simple inspection of data packets from the router. That is, it checks information such as destination and source IP address, packet type, port number, and other surface level information without opening the packet and examining its contents.

If the information package does not pass inspection, it is dropped.

The advantage of these firewalls is that they are not resource intensive. However, it is relatively straightforward, with no significant impact on system performance. However, it is relatively easy to bypass compared to firewalls with more robust control capabilities.

circuit level gateway

Another simple type of firewall, circuit-level gateways work by resolving Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) handshakes to quickly and easily grant or deny traffic without using significant computing resources. This TCP handshake check is designed to verify that the session from which the packet was sent is legitimate.

Although very resource efficient, these firewalls do not check packets on their own. That is, if the packet contains malware, but a valid TCP handshake, it passes directly. Therefore, circuit-level gateways alone are not enough to protect your business.

Status Check Firewall

These firewalls combine packet inspection technology with TCP handshake verification to create a higher level of protection than only one of the previous two architectures can provide.

However, these firewalls also put more strain on your computing resources. This can lead to a slower legitimate packet transfer compared to other solutions.

Proxy Firewall (Application Level Gateway / Cloud Firewall)

The proxy firewall works at the application layer to filter incoming traffic between the network and the traffic source, hence it is called an "application-level gateway". These are provided through firewalls, cloud-based solutions or other proxy devices. Instead of allowing the traffic to connect directly, the proxy firewall first establishes a connection to the traffic source and examines the incoming data packets.

This inspection is similar to a stateful inspection firewall in that it verifies both the packet and the TCP handshake protocol. However, the proxy firewall performs deep packet inspection to verify the actual contents of the information packet to ensure it is free of malware.

When the verification is complete and the packet's binding to the destination is confirmed, the proxy sends the packet. This creates an extra layer between the "client" (the machine from which the packet originated) and the individual devices on the network, preventing these devices from creating additional anonymity and protection for the network.

One disadvantage of proxy firewalls is that extra steps in the data packet transfer process can cause significant slowdowns.

Next generation firewall

Many of the most recently released firewall products are being touted as "next generation" architectures. But there isn't much consensus on what makes firewalls truly next-gen.

Some common features of next-generation firewall architectures include deep packet inspection (checking the actual content of data packets), TCP handshake inspection, and surface-level packet inspection. Next-generation firewalls may also include other technologies such as intrusion prevention systems (IPS) that automatically block attacks on your network.

The problem is that next-generation firewalls do not have a single definition, so this security

What is a security breach and how to avoid one

 

A security breach is any incident that results in unauthorized access to computer data, applications, networks, or devices. It leads to accessing information without permission. Usually, this happens when an intruder is able to bypass the security mechanisms.

security breach meaning

Technically, there is a difference between a security breach and a data breach. A security breach is an effective breach, while a data breach is defined as a cyber criminal escaping the information. Imagine a thief. The security breach is when he climbs into a window, and a data breach is when he grabs your pocket or laptop and takes it away.

Confidential information has an enormous value. It is often sold on the dark web; For example, names and credit card numbers can be bought and then used for identity theft or fraud purposes. Not surprisingly, security breaches cost companies huge sums of money. On average, the bill is around $ 4 million for the major corporations.

It is also important to distinguish between the definition of a security breach and the definition of a security incident. An incident could include a malware infection, a DDOS attack, or an employee leaving a laptop in a taxi, but if this does not lead to network access or data loss, it will not be considered a security breach.

Examples of a security breach

When a major organization has a security breach, it always hits the headlines. Examples of a security breach include:

Equifax - In 2017, a vulnerability in its website application caused the company to lose personal details of 145 million Americans. This included their names, Social Security numbers, and driver's license numbers. The attacks took place over a three-month period from May to July, but the security breach was not announced until September.

Yahoo - 3 billion user accounts were compromised in 2013 after a phishing attempt that gave hackers access to the network.

EBay experienced a major breach in 2014. Although PayPal users 'credit card information was not at risk, many customers' passwords were compromised. The company acted quickly to email its users and ask them to change their passwords in order to stay safe.

Dating site Ashley Madison, which marketed itself to married people wanting to have sexual relations, was hacked in 2015. Hackers continued to leak a large number of customer details online. The extortionists began targeting customers whose names had been leaked; Unconfirmed reports have linked a number of suicides to data breaches.

Facebook saw that internal software flaws resulted in 29 million users losing personal data in 2018. This was a particularly embarrassing security breach as the compromised accounts included the account of company CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Marriott Hotels announced a security and data breach that affected up to 500 million customer records in 2018. However, the guest reservations system was breached in 2016 - and the breach was only discovered two years later.

Perhaps most embarrassing, being a cybersecurity company doesn't make you immune - the Czech company Avast revealed a security breach in 2019 when a hacker managed to compromise an employee's VPN credentials. This breach did not threaten customer details but instead aimed to introduce malware into Avast products.

A decade or so ago, many companies tried to keep news of security breaches secret so as not to destroy consumer confidence. However, this is becoming increasingly rare. In the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires companies to notify relevant authorities of any breach and any individuals whose personal data may be at risk. By January 2020, the GDPR was only in effect for 18 months, and indeed, more than 160,000 separate data breach notices were sent out - more than 250 per day.