How Do I Improve SOC Effectiveness?

Top Priorities for Improving SOC Effectiveness

Optimizing processes, selecting the right tools, and using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) wherever possible are threads that run through efforts to improve the effectiveness of a SOC. Following are several examples of each.

Adopt a Risk-Based Cybersecurity Approach

A risk-based cybersecurity approach improves SOC effectiveness by proactively identifying gaps in an organization's security strategy. It also helps inform remediation prioritization by assigning risk levels to vulnerabilities. This reduces risks from cyber threats and helps address compliance requirements.

Establish Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for SOC Teams

Having standardized, repeatable processes that are readily accessible and well-documented improves SOC effectiveness by facilitating efficient operations for day-to-day and crisis situations. Key processes that should be codified in SOPs are:

• Alert triage processes
• Communication plans
• Continuous monitoring practices
• Data handling and privacy compliance policies
• Escalation procedures
• Incident response protocols
• Post-incident analysis, documentation, and reporting
• Role and responsibility definitions
• Security audit outlines

Focus on Proactive Threat Hunting

Proactive security is a surefire way to improve SOC effectiveness. Engaging in proactive threat hunting strengthens SOC teams at all levels with real-world, hands-on security exercises. Tier 1 SOC analysts provide research information to support Tier 2 and 3 SOC analysts' in-depth investigations and analysis.

Increase Security Visibility

Enhanced visibility within SOCs is paramount to bolstering the responsiveness and defense mechanisms against potential cyber threats. As SOC teams gain comprehensive insights into the intricacies of the systems they oversee, their ability to swiftly identify and counteract emerging issues is significantly amplified. This proactive stance aids in the early detection of potential risks, enabling teams to address and mitigate threats before they evolve into full-fledged problems.

Moreover, a key component in this transparency is the implementation of overview dashboards. These dashboards offer SOC teams a cohesive and centralized perspective, encompassing the health of internal systems and providing a lens through which external threats can be monitored in real time. This heightened visibility empowers SOC teams to strategize effectively, ensuring an anticipatory rather than merely reactive approach to cybersecurity.

Minimize False Positives

Minimizing false positives is an ongoing priority as it significantly impacts SOC effectiveness. It eliminates alert fatigue, which burns out SOC staff and increases the likelihood of legitimate threats slipping through the cracks, resulting in a data breach or other security incident. With the inclusion of AI and ML into many security tools and SOC solutions, false positives can be materially reduced to nearly zero in some cases.

Optimize Communication and Collaboration

Communication and collaboration are increasingly becoming a higher priority for SOC managers seeking to improve the effectiveness of their teams. The ability to quickly and easily share information ensures that everyone in the SOC is on the same page, which is especially important regarding incident response efforts.

Additionally, enhancing communication and collaboration between SOC team members and other groups helps reinforce the importance of cybersecurity and threat awareness. It brings a unified approach to cybersecurity across the organization.

Speed Time to Detection, Response, and Remediation

Expediting mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR) are the highest priorities for SOC analysts. The ability to quickly identify and neutralize threats and vulnerabilities is vital. No matter how much improvement is made in the area, every CISO and SOC manager wants to see these metrics continue to be reduced.

Track SOC Performance Metrics

Key performance indicators (KPIs) must be established and monitored to identify areas requiring improvement and assess the effectiveness of SOC optimizations and updates. Some of the most crucial KPIs include:

• Compliance adherence rate
• Incident resolution rate
• Mean time to detect (MTTD)
• Mean time to respond (MTTR)
• Number of incidents over time
• Security training and awareness programs’ frequency and attendance
• Threat hunting success rate

Integrating Threat Intelligence to Enhance SOC Effectiveness

Collecting threat intelligence for internal and external sources and integrating it with security technology is vital to increasing the efficacy of security teams. When deeply integrated security operations systems are used, threat intelligence enables SOC teams to respond more quickly to cyber threats and proactively stop cybercriminals from successfully breaching security controls.

Threat Intelligence Collection

The first step for optimal threat intelligence integration is collection. Internal threat intelligence is data collected from security systems like intrusion detection and prevention systems, firewalls, email and web servers, network traffic, and logs (e.g., event and application logs and DNS logs).

Security information and event management (SIEM) systems are also a rich source of raw threat intelligence data along with malware disassemblers that reverse engineer malware to learn how it works and help with defenses against future, similar attacks.

Third-party providers gather external threat intelligence by consolidating information from various public and private sources. These sources include websites, social media, public government data, commercial data, partner telemetry, academic research, and contributions from security practitioners to open-source repositories. This data encompasses cyberattack tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), emerging attack vectors, and indicators of compromise (IOCs) for new cyber threats.

Threat Intelligence Management Tools

Threat intelligence platforms help SOC teams normalize and prioritize the data they collect. These tools also help streamline processes for using threat intelligence to inform the SOC strategy, take proactive defensive measures, and respond to evolving cyber threats in real time by facilitating the analysis and contextualization of threats.

Security Tools that Improve SOC Effectiveness

Investing in the right tools is at the crux of improving SOC effectiveness. For most organizations, cloud-based solutions work best regardless of whether the SOC function is handled with in-house teams or by leveraging managed security service provider (MSSP) offerings.

Irrespective of the model, the core functionalities that an effective SOC team needs to optimize operations and performance are:

• Access controls
• Application behavior monitoring
• Continuously monitoring
• Endpoint detection and response (EDR)
• Extended detection and response (XDR)
• Firewalls
• Incident response management
• Intrusion detection and intrusion prevention (IDS/IPS)
• Policy enforcement
• Risk assessment and management
• Security information and event management (SIEM)
• Security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR)
• Threat detection
• User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) 
• Vulnerability management

How Reports and Dashboards Improve SOC Effectiveness

Assessing the information requirements of SOC teams and support groups helps improve operational efficiencies and stakeholder communication. This upfront work also ensures that dashboards are optimally configured and report data is readily accessible. The following are several central dashboards and reports that SOC teams should have.

Compliance

These dashboards display a real-time compliance status based on rules, regulations, and standards, such as: 

• The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
• The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• ISO27001, PCI-DSS, and NIST 800-53

Report templates should also be available to produce mandated information to prove compliance.

Security Controls Performance

Insight into continuous security monitoring results allows team members to identify deficiencies and areas for improvement to enhance security quickly. Control performance reports provide a CISO with key KPIs to budget for the SOC and understand measures against cyber threats. This clarity helps teams spot misconfigurations and vulnerabilities early, lowering the risk of data breaches, financial loss, and reputational harm.

Risk Reports

Risk reports give SOC teams vital information for proactive security measures. These reports detail vulnerabilities and the associated risks in terms of potential impact and scale, allowing SOC teams to triage remediation appropriately.

Incident Response Information

An incident response dashboard offers real-time insights into cyber threats and security incidents. It gives team members visibility into actions taken and ongoing remediation work.

Additionally, it ensures timely communication with management and stakeholders about remediation efforts. The information in these dashboards aids post-incident analysis for process improvement and system refinement.

Vulnerability Management

Like risk reports and dashboards, those for vulnerability management provide an overview of an organization’s open vulnerabilities, prioritization, and the SOC’s plans to remediate them. This centralized view of risks helps teams keep on track with remediation efforts, shift priorities based on changing risk factors, and quickly provide data necessary for compliance reporting.

Investing in Training and Development Programs

Investing in training and development is a proven tactic to improve the operations of any group, but it is particularly effective for SOC teams. Ongoing training and development keeps SOC teams up to speed on the latest threats and security trends. It also helps stop staff turnover, a serious issue that impedes the effectiveness of a SOC.

Offering a variety of training models ensures that SOC teams stay engaged and internalize the content. Hands-on and simulation training is also highly recommended.

Additionally, supporting professional development by giving SOC team members opportunities to obtain certifications helps improve SOC effectiveness. Several of the most widely recognized certifications for enhancing SOC team efficacy are:

• CISA Certified Information Systems Auditor, administered by ISACA, tests one’s ability to monitor, audit, control, and assess a company’s IT and business assets.
• CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) is widely considered to be the gold standard of cyber security certification. It certifies one's ability to create, carry out, and manage complex cybersecurity systems.
• CompTIA Security+ is a beginner cyber security certification that covers a wide range of cybersecurity-related topics at a high level.
• CySA+ is a security analyst certification that covers a broader array of subjects, including incident detection, cyber security prevention, and incident response through security monitoring.
• GIAC Information Security Fundamentals (GISF) provides certification for proficiency in cyber security basics such as networking, basic cryptography, computer hardware, and other cyber security technologies.
• GIAC Security Essentials (GSEC) is a more advanced certification than GISF. It goes beyond memorizing terminology and basic security focus concepts, demonstrating the ability to handle hands-on security roles.

How to Improve SOC Effectiveness FAQs