SOC services

SOC in cybersecurity stands for Security Operations Centre - a specialized facility that includes the people, technology and threat intelligence that organizations need to monitor and improve their cybersecurity. A SOC is sometimes called a CSOC (Cyber Security Operations Centre) - the terms are largely synonymous.

An SOC of Warpnet consists of security analysts, technicians and responders whose job is to prevent, detect, respond to and remediate cyber threats. SOCs are typically responsible for activities such as system implementation and management, log management and monitoring, incident investigation and triage, vulnerability management and compliance reporting.

A SOC analyst is a cyber security professional who is part of the team responsible for monitoring the IT infrastructure to identify security weaknesses and detect and respond to threats.

A Network Operations Centre (NOC) is responsible for maintaining and monitoring IT systems and preventing network interruptions and outages. An NOC is not responsible for cyber security, which is the traditional job of a Security Operations Centre (SOC).

The three pillars of a successful SOC are people, processes and technology. A good SOC consists of a team of experts managing and monitoring threat detection technologies using advanced analytics, integrated intelligence and customized automation processes to continuously detect and respond to threats.

The tools used in a SOC or a jointly managed SOC will vary by environment, but the one essential purpose they share is data collection. To identify threats, a SOC needs a huge amount of telemetry and event data that must be collected, analyzed, contextualized and enriched. SOC tools can include SIEM, IDS, EDR, UEBA, NTA, vulnerability scanning and user behavior monitoring tools.

A SOC must use a number of different technologies to help identify threats throughout an organization's IT environment. SOC tools should monitor network traffic, log files and endpoint activity. Security experts can then collect and analyze this information and use it to detect and eliminate threats before they cause damage and disruption.

Building and implementing an SOC does not happen overnight. It requires an extensive period of design and strategy planning, during which SOC processes are created and training provided.

After implementation, the work is not done - SOC use cases must be developed and the facility must be maintained and evolved over time. For an organization that does not have the resources to hire a full team of cybersecurity specialists, a co-managed SOC or a fully managed SOC is a cost-effective option to bridge the gap.

A managed SOC, also called SOC as-a-service, is an outsourced security service that provides organizations with a SOC function for a cost-effective subscription. A managed SOC acts as a virtual extension of in-house resources to deploy and manage security technologies, monitor and triage alerts, analyze and investigate threats and support incident response. SOC services come in many different forms, including a fully outsourced SOC, a virtual SOC or a jointly managed SOC, where responsibilities are shared between the buyer and the service provider.

As you might expect, the cost of an SOC varies significantly from organization to organization. Implementing the latest technologies and monitoring them 24/7 is expensive, and the certified security experts needed to perform day-to-day operations are not cheap. Even for a medium-sized organization, costs can quickly run into the millions, with recent research by the Ponemon Institute suggesting an average annual expense of more than $2.5 million. Outsourcing the SOC function should yield significant cost savings - for many organizations, the subscription fee will be less than the equivalent cost of hiring a small team of analysts for ongoing risk detection and response.