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Home Insights Resources Managed SOC: An Expert Guide
70% of medium-sized businesses reported breaches or attempted cyber attacks within the last 12 months. In the UK, the total annual cost of cybercrimes for businesses is £21 million. You can’t hide from those numbers, so how can a best-of-breed Managed SOC play a part in reducing them?
What is a SOC?
What is a Managed SOC?
Why you need a Managed SOC?
Benefits of a Managed SOC
Capabilities of a Managed SOC
Implementing a Managed SOC
Managed SOC VS. MSSP
Choosing the right Managed SOC Partner
A Security Operations Center (SOC) is a central unit that performs essential security functions that’ll enhance a businesses overall state of readiness to respond to cyberattacks – it can either be outsourced (managed SOC), or in-house. In-house SOC is typically less cost-effective and more time consuming.
Whether it’s an in-house SOC or managed, the team will include an SOC manager, security engineer, advanced security analyst, security investigator, and incident responder – all of whom will report to an organisation’s CISO.
With the latest statistics stating there are now over 560,000 recorded attempted and successful cyber attacks, a team of security analysts and cyber security managers is not a need; it’s a must.
Most companies will outsource to a SOC equipped with advanced threat intelligence tools to instantaneously reduce the threat and impact of cyber attacks. It’s the best value for money for organisations without the resources or knowledge to manage it in-house. It’s a 24/7, fully comprehensive, centralised security operation that provides round the clock security support.
A Managed SOC performs key security functions to enhance an organisation’s cyber security posture through detection, response and continuous functions. This is achieved through monitoring the security of an organisations supported environment for cyber threats, conducting triage, investigating and responding to security incidents and providing reports, utilising standard systems and processes.
The continuous active search for cyber threats improves detection abilities, looking beyond the norms to reveal hidden threats – there’s no waiting around for the threat to come to you.
A security team will use different tools and procedures for identifying and responding to cyber threats. With continuous monitoring, preventing cyberattacks becomes almost seamless while incidents reduce in severity and companies keep compliance with regulations supported. And with real-time feedback, organisations can better understand their security posture and have actionable insights that enable the creation of effective cyber security defence mechanisms.
Many organisations find it tricky to establish and maintain their internal SOCs due to costs or resource needs, as we’ve said already. A managed SOC removes the need to build and maintain SOC in-house resulting in reduced operational and infrastructure expenses.
However, managed SOC services offer an alternative where external cyber security experts monitor your IT systems 24/7 on behalf of a business. These are trained experts in cyber security and management and the end-to-end integration with the managed SOC service and the organisation’s existing IT functions creates a fully integrated service across the combined IT organisation.
Another statistic for you: the average cost per breach in the UK is £3.4 million, with 50% of businesses experiencing a cyber attack in 2023. It’s literally a 50/50 chance of attack.
And if one in two businesses in the UK will be a victim of a cyber attack, perhaps the question we should be asking is, why don’t you need managed SOC?
We’ve dotted in mentions of the benefits throughout this article, but here’s a summary:
We’ve also discussed the capabilities of a Managed SOC Service, but let’s sum up the individual benefits:
First, the security experts we mentioned working within the Managed SOC centre assess your security systems to identify weaknesses and define your business scope to learn about the capabilities to provide monitoring, detection, triage, containment, and escalation. They’ll then perform a threat landscape review to learn about how your business manages threats and the general cyber threats you’re likely to face, including a NIST controls coverage review to check current security controls. With that, they’ll then focus on high-level enterprise threat modelling of major threats for enhanced mitigation.
Once end-to-end integration and complete understanding of your cyber security posture is complete, automated tools and human analysis will help continuously monitor your digital environment for possible threats and act where necessary. Once the threat is identified, the SOC team will investigate and respond with strategies to help mitigate any risks involved so that no actual damage occurs.
Most Managed SOC partners will send regular reports about your cyber health.
Although managed SOCs and managed security service providers (MSSPs) offer security services and benefits, there are some differences:
Considering all of the above when selecting a Managed Service Partner for SOC, here are some tips for picking the best partner:
Do you think you need a Managed SOC? If you look at the statistics we’ve given you throughout this article, we’d now say it’s essential for all brands with a growing online presence to invest in a Managed SOC service.
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