A leading healthcare provider faced challenges in managing and responding to security incidents due to limited resources. They adopted a SOAR platform to streamline their incident response process and automate routine tasks such as malware analysis and user account investigations. With the SOAR platform’s orchestration capabilities, they were able to consolidate alerts, automatically trigger incident response actions, and provide comprehensive reports. This enabled them to reduce the time taken to resolve incidents and improve compliance with regulatory requirements.
What is a SOAR platform?
In today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape, organizations face an overwhelming number of security alerts and incidents that need to be managed efficiently. Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms have emerged as a powerful solution to help security teams streamline their operations, improve incident response times, and enhance overall cybersecurity posture.
SOAR, a term introduced by Gartner, encompasses three essential capabilities that security tools provide to enhance security programs. The following are the components of SOAR:
Security Orchestration: Brings together threat and vulnerability management technologies, establishing defined parameters and processes.
Automation: Alleviates the burden of repetitive tasks by initiating workflows based on predefined parameters, and in some cases, completely automating responses to low-risk incidents.
Response: Expedites an organization’s mitigation efforts by offering analysts a centralized view to investigate, collaborate, and share threat intelligence, facilitating efficient planning and monitoring of threat responses.
Together, these components empower organizations to bolster their security posture and respond effectively to evolving threats.
The pros and cons of the SOAR platform
Pros
SOAR platforms benefit organizations by offering them the ability to automate and streamline their cybersecurity processes and tasks, particularly those that were traditionally inefficient, reactive, or manual. By implementing SOAR, organizations can enhance their operational efficiency and enable their skilled security teams to focus on critical tasks that require human expertise. This leads to better resource allocation and improved overall cybersecurity posture.
Furthermore, SOAR platforms enable organizations to harness the full potential of their internal threat intelligence. By aggregating data from various internal and external sources, SOAR empowers security operations centres (SOCs) to become intelligence-driven. The availability of high-quality data helps SOC teams contextualize incidents, make well-informed decisions, and accelerate threat detection and response. This intelligence-driven approach enhances the effectiveness of the SOC and optimizes its time and resources.
Cons
One common misconception about SOAR platforms is that they can replace human security professionals. However, SOAR is designed to augment and empower security teams, rather than replace them. It acts as a force multiplier, enabling teams to work more efficiently and effectively. However, certain dependencies and challenges need to be addressed for its successful implementation.
First, experienced professionals are essential to creating detailed workflows that can be operationalized within the SOAR platform. Without proper documentation of processes, the benefits of SOAR cannot be fully realized. Additionally, a deep understanding of the organization’s environment and the ability to collect and analyze operational metrics is crucial.
Furthermore, deploying and integrating a SOAR platform into the enterprise is a complex task that requires technical expertise. The platform needs to be connected with various applications and technologies used by the organization. If certain technologies cannot be integrated, it limits the effectiveness of the SOAR platform, as one of its strengths lies in its ability to orchestrate and connect with other technologies.
AIOps and SOAR
AIOps solutions utilize data aggregation to automate and analyze IT tasks, surpassing the automation capabilities of SOAR platforms. However, SOAR platforms play a crucial role in facilitating the aggregation needed for AIOps. The relationship between the two suggests that AIOps may be integrated into the security platform suites, similar to how they incorporated SOAR. This integration enhances automation and machine learning capabilities, but it may also lead to increased dependency on vendors and reduced visibility into platform engineering for enterprise customers. Ultimately, the convergence of these technologies may result in diverse security suites with complex vendor dependencies.
Conclusion
As cybersecurity threats become more sophisticated and the volume of incidents continues to rise, organizations must embrace technologies that can enhance their security operations. SOAR platforms offer a comprehensive solution to manage and respond to security alerts efficiently. By automating routine tasks, providing centralized visibility, and enabling collaboration, SOAR platforms empower security teams to focus on critical incidents, reduce response times, and improve overall cybersecurity posture. While implementing and maintaining a SOAR platform may require effort and resources, the benefits outweigh the challenges, making it a valuable investment for organizations seeking to stay ahead of evolving cyber threats. Know how Skillmine’s cybersecurity services can help your business strengthen its security posture
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