Security Operation Centers (SOC) are built to protect organizations against cyberattacks. Every SOC is a synergy of three key elements: technology, processes, and people, the latter being the most important. Team with proper organizational structure, effectively monitoring and analyzing enterprise security situation, turns a physical or virtual location created to collect and analyze data into a true security operations center actively and effectively defending against security breaches. The organizational structure of a typical SOC team is essential for its operation. Let us have a close look at it and understand why and what composition of the SOC team for hire might benefit cybersecurity operations.

Introduction to SOC Team Responsibilities

The responsibilities of SOC teams are about different stages and zones of security incident management. They are covered by Tier I-III SOC team members who co-operate handling incidents (and performing other cybersecurity duties). These activities usually include:

• Investigation of potential incidents. SOC analysts deal with large number of alerts, some of them pointing to real attacks and others being false. Potential incidents should be properly analyzed to be properly identified.
• Prioritization of incidents. When the incident is qualified as true, then it should be assigned a certain priority level, based on potential risks for the enterprise and available incident response resources.
• Incident response: advanced SOC analysts orchestrate the incident response process, which usually involves different processes, tools, and team members. This process should be prompt, standardized, and flexible to avoid delays or inefficiencies in the remediation of the incident.

Incident response is a key but not the only responsibility of the SOC team. Other roles are also very important for the cybersecurity posture of the organization. SOC teams are usually held responsible for keeping up with the new emerging threats and attacks and making sure the cybersecurity systems would be able to detect them. It also includes vulnerability management, first of all, patching the hardware and software systems. When the time comes, the SOC team, especially the security architects, might also participate in upgrading the customer’s cybersecurity infrastructure at all levels, from identifying the gap to implementing the relevant cybersecurity solution. Finally, the SOC team, mainly its manager, should be ready to communicate with C-level executives to justify cybersecurity investments and show adequate returns measured by mitigated incidents and connected potential losses.

Shortage of Cybersecurity Personnel and Impact on SOC Teams

Key responsibilities of the SOC teams are essential, however, they often struggle with fulfilling them. One of the main reasons for underperforming is a problem with staffing critical positions and subsequent lack of resources required for efficient management of false positives, keeping the effect of cybersecurity operations on business operations minimal, and ensuring rapid incident response. Also, there is always a need to manage sophisticated and expensive solutions like SIEM, take care of vulnerability and patch management, perform other mandatory cybersecurity duties. All these tasks require a dedicated 24×7 team, which is long and expensive to build for majority of organizations. This issue appears to be even more critical in view of the global shortage of cybersecurity experts. And it is becoming more difficult and expensive to hire cybersecurity staff year after year.

Benefits of the SOC-as-a-Service for Your SOC Team

The good news is that there are other ways to get access to cybersecurity expertise. One of the best possible solutions to strengthen your SOC team would be a SOC-as-a-service model when you extend your team without hiring a single new person. Instead, you will benefit from a third-party team of SOC analysts acting like a trained extension of the existing team and devoted to the most burdensome tasks.

The overall price of the SOC-as-a-Service option for you would be much lower than hiring your personnel. With an outsourced SOC team, you are relieved from bearing the costs of staffing, training, enterprise-class software solutions, etc. Also, you get a SOC team member or members with more varied experience received in different cybersecurity environments of numerous customers.

SOC-as-a-Service by Trilight Security

Trilight Security provides SOC-as-a-Service to small and medium businesses requiring 24x7x365 cybersecurity protection but lacking adequate financial resources. Our dedicated SOC team members and cybersecurity advisors provide all relevant services, from round-the-clock security monitoring to incident investigation, from cybersecurity systems implementation and support to vulnerability management and penetration testing.

(5) Major SOC Team Roles and their Responsibilities

SOC teams resemble each other, yet, there will always be some differences. However, let us assume that a typical SOC features typical roles and responsibilities. All of them are about major cybersecurity tasks: investigation of suspicious activities and maintenance of cybersecurity tools, SIEM in the first place.

Techtarget says that there are five main technical roles in a well-run SOC: incident responder, security investigator, advanced security analyst, SOC manager, and security engineer/architect. It is a generally accepted model, still one should note that nearly identical roles might bear different names in different SOC environments, in particular, for the Tier I level.

1. Tier 1. Security Analyst aka Incident Responder aka Security Operator
2. Tier 2. Security Investigator
3. Tier 3. Advanced Security Analyst aka Threat Hunter
4. SOC manager
5. Security Engineers/Architects

Alternative to SOC-as-a-Service

Should you have no operational SOC at the moment, or should augmenting your SOC team now be insufficient for the cybersecurity challenges faced by your organization, Trilight Security will help you with fully functional MSS or MDR service (see the pricing). Whatever option you choose, connect with us, and we will offer you a solution best suited to your current and future needs.