Should a Security Operations Center (SOC) Handle Your Security Issues?

Posted on May 6, 2021 Backups & DR

An increase in cyberattacks against companies has more than quadrupled since 2015. According to Cybercrime Magazine, cybercrimes like this are expected to cost the world an estimated $10.5 trillion every year by 2025.

Increasing your efforts for cybersecurity within your company is the best thing that you can do to ensure your cyber safety along with the protection of your customer’s private information. You might even consider hiring an SOC to handle your cybersecurity needs.

Continue reading to learn everything you need to know about hiring a Security Operations Center (SOC) for your company. 

What Is SOC?

An SOC, also known as a Security Operations Center, acts as a central command post that offers around-the-clock prevention and protection from cyberattacks and data breaches. These attacks on your company are sometimes unprecedented and happen despite your best security efforts. 

Having a security operations center is essential the safeguard your business from cyberattacks. The main focus of an SOC is to thwart security threats before they become a problem. They make sure that you are totally prepared for an attack with an immediate response plan in place.

Cybersecurity via an SOC is especially important during uncertain times when Interpol is seeing an alarming increase in attacks that are solely aimed at major corporations, governments, and infrastructures. These companies are vulnerable to data breaches.

Who Makes Up the SOC?

A security operations center is made up of highly skilled security engineers, analysts, and supervisors who work together to make sure that every part of the system is functioning.

First, you have your SOC manager who oversees the entire operation and reports back to the chief information security officer. Then, you have a compliance auditor who handles standardizing processes and making sure everyone within the SOC is following protocol and government regulations.

The threat hunter works to expose any cyber attacks before hackers have the chance to affect the security system. The incident responder works to react to alerts in the system as soon as they happen. Once something happens, they will work towards the protection and recovery of the security systems. 

The SOCs analyst is responsible for analyzing any previous attacks and figuring out the root cause of the problem. This helps to make sure that these problems are avoided in the future.

They are specifically trained to make sure these systems are monitored and managed to the best of their abilities. The goal of the SOC is to find these issues and respond to them before the entire system becomes compromised. This is happening 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year long.

What Are the Different Models of SOC Available?

There are four different types of security operations centers out there. The first being a dedicated or internal SOC. This is where the company creates its own cybersecurity team. There are virtual SOCs that work remotely. There are global or command SOCs where a group handles SOCs over a larger region. 

The final of the four is co-managed SOCs where the internal IT steam works with an outsourced vendor to manage all of a company’s cybersecurity needs. This is where NETdepot comes in. NETdepot is a type of software as a service (SaaS) that has over 20 years of experience as experienced leaders in the industry.

Our services are completely scalable to the specific needs of your company. We offer several different types of clouds to store your data, including a private cloud, a public cloud, a hybrid cloud, and bare-metal servers. 

What Does a Security Operations Center Do?

SOCs provide several services in an attempt to strengthen your existing security system. They provide 24/7 surveillance to make sure that the system is running to the best of its ability. SOCs can install, update, and troubleshoot software while managing technology via firewall and intrusion prevention. 

They offer antivirus, malware, and ransomware solutions. Your security policies and procedures will be enforced by the security operations center. The SOC will investigate any security breaches so that you understand why the breach happened and how to prevent future attacks on your business. 

When the SOC isn’t focused on finding the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in your security system, it is going to be focused on improving the current security system. Penetration testing is when the SOC attempts to hack into the existing security system to make sure there are no vulnerabilities.

To provide all of these services, the security operations center has several roles that they perform, including identifying, protecting, detecting, responding, and recovering. 

1. Identify

At this level, the SOC runs several threat analyses and assessments to make sure no current attacks and problems are occurring. This is where the penetration testing is performed. This type of test is a pre-authorized simulation that allows the SOC to understand potential weaknesses in the system.

2. Protect

As a protector, the SOC works on a network level and a physical level. The networks that are involved to protect the company are firewalls, ISPs, IDSs, and 2FA-logins. Physical protection is then provided as the 4 tier datacenters, 24/7 manned facilities, and air-gapped backups. 

3. Detect

The SOCs run via a 24/7 dual SOC/NOC setup for detection of any possible issues. The security operations center (SOC) works together with the network operations center (NOC). They detect abnormalities based on AI and ML. 

4. Respond

Response to these issues comes from that same 24/7 dual SOC/NOC setup. The SOC and the NOC work together to handle the control of data exploitation in real-time. 

5. Recover

The SOC has the ability to restore data to a disaster recovery site or cloud. This covers data loss that might occur during natural disasters, blackouts, and other means of losing data.

Pros of Hiring a Security Operations Center

An outsourced security operations center is dedicated to preventing attacks and protecting the system during attacks when they do occur. A security operations center offers uninterrupted, guaranteed services 24/7.

You will have access to threat assessments in real-time. This results in less downtime because the NOC is working towards getting you up and running as soon as an issue is noticed and the SOC is working with them to make sure it doesn’t happen again. 

Not only do you get continuous service, but SOCs are cost-efficient and easy to budget. When you hire an entire team to work the cybersecurity division of your business, you have to prepare to spend the big bucks. When you hire a security operations center, you are simply paying for the services that you need.

Your SOC can engage with your existing IT department to respond to the issue at the first sign of a problem, then investigate the problem as a means to never have to encounter the problem ever again. As soon as you hire an SOC, you have immediate access to cybersecurity. They are easily implemented into the system and they are scalable to fit the needs of your company.

Your customers depend on your company’s ability to keep their private information safe from prying eyes. Because the SOC works toward avoiding breaches in the system and keeping your network secure, you can gain and keep your customer’s trust.

Your security operations center is going to think outside the box when it comes to preventing these cyberattacks and data breaches. They will be able to think like a hacker with the penetration tests. These tests force the SOC team to look for vulnerabilities in areas where they might not usually think to do so.

Cons of an Outsourced SOC

There’s a chance that outsourcing SOC just won’t work for your company. With outsourced SOCs, your company’s data is stored outside of the company’s network. Not only this, but the SOC isn’t on-site for immediate intervention. Their services are usually remote via the company’s security network. 

The SOC may be unable to thoroughly assess the existing IT infrastructure. There may be compatibility issues. Your company’s system may need to be updated to function correctly. 

An SOC may not know or understand the interworkings of your company. You may have to teach them how things run and what you need from them. There is also a chance that though they are customizable and scalable, they may not be fully customizable. 

Another issue may come with the level of expertise needed and the pricing. With a tiered pricing system, as you grow your company, the services may become more expensive. 

Hire a Security Operations Center for Cybersecurity

When you are serious about protecting your company and all of its sensitive information, it may be time to hire an SOC to handle all of these processes for you so that you can focus on the more important tasks, like running your business. We want you to feel protected and you can do so by hiring NETdepot for cybersecurity.

Contact NETdepot today to get started. We’d be happy to provide your company with top-notch cybersecurity solutions.

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