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The Modern SOC

One Step Ahead of the Latest Cyber Threats

In the modern world, there's a greater threat landscape than ever. Attackers are highly skilled, and financially and geopolitically motivated, bypassing security controls with more stealth than ever before. The Modern SOC operates under the assumption that breaches will occur, with the mission of detecting and responding to those cyber threats faster and in the most effective way to minimize harm and incident cost.


Forces Driving a Modern SOC

Security teams are hard at work, but despite their best efforts, incidents continue to grow for a number of reasons that drive the adoption of a modern SOC

Laptop with a glowing screen with graphs and icons in it projecting out of the keyboard
Businesses feel challenged to stay cyber resilient because the threat landscape changes continuously and quickly. They know cyber breaches can affect (or even destroy) an organization and its reputation.
With digital transformation and remote work, security teams are overwhelmed trying to enable it securely, with much more data to monitor, on top of managing legacy systems.
The shortage in skilled staff increases the workload for the security team, with unfilled open jobs and burnout among staff slowing the whole organization.
The large volume of operational tools and alerts generated by security controls creates a complexity that diminishes efficacy and efficiency.
Security teams lack effective tools, automation, and processes for streamlining threat detection, investigations, and incident response.

What Makes a Modern SOC Different?

A modern SOC must not only identify threats that slip pass into the environment, but be able to analyze, investigate and respond to them, report the vulnerabilities discovered, and determine how to anticipate similar occurrences in the future.

Gold padlock sitting on top of a computer keyboard

Hardening and Prevention

Reducing the attack surface and reinforcing prevention methods are always more effective than reaction. By doing so, the SOC team can focus on detecting unknown, sophisticated threats that go under the radar and stop them before any damage.

Close up of a man's eye with targeting scope lines around it

Threat Hunting

Hunting effectiveness depends on the enriched historical and real-time activity data. The right data with the right security analytics enable a SOC’s hunters to detect, validate hypotheses, and roll them out as automated detections quickly and accurately.

Fiberoptic cabling going into a connector on the left and colored dots on the right

Ingestion and Detection of Indicators

Modern SOCs ingest data collected from the network at scale, normalizing and enriching it with security intelligence. Big data analytics and machine learning analyze the enriched data to identify and prioritize indicators of suspicious activity.

Woman in glasses working on a monitor

Incident Validation and Investigation

In a modern SOC, analysts leverage correlation rules and analytics to quickly validate being under an attack, and go deeper to determine the nature of a threat, the extent to which it has penetrated the organization, and the different tools and techniques leveraged by the threat actor.

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Response, Recovery and Lessons Learned

The SOC team may respond by isolating devices, killing processes, or deleting files, and they may co-work with IT to restore systems and recover any lost data. The lessons-learned stage is a time to question how and why the incident occurred and what can be done to avoid future incidents.

Ready to Build Your Modern SOC?

The requirements for SOCs have evolved in recent years as attack volumes have surged and threats have grown more sophisticated. Modern SOCs automate critical but repetitive tasks while elevating the maturity and efficiency of the security operations team. Be sure to consider the right capability to support your security operation team to succeed.

Key Capabilities Traditional SOC Modern SOC
Alert-based detection ✓
Visibility and activity monitoring ✓
Suspicious activity detection ✓
Security analytics on activity (telemetry) ✓
Proactive hunt ✓
Collaborative Incident case management ✓
In-depth investigation ✓
Incident root cause analysis ✓
Incident course of actions ✓
Response – manual or automatic Optional
Lesson learned Optional
Dark shape in a black hoody in a room with red lights down the walls in stripes

Know Your Enemy. Be Prepared for a Breach.

While many threats try to access from the outside (mass disruption, financial gain, hacktivism, competitive intelligence, and IP theft motivated), there are many malicious insiders (unprotected endpoints, negligent workers, departing employees, third-party partners) who could open the door to external threats and cause damage or steal data. A proactive approach from a modern SOC ensures that you sniff out a suspicious activity before it becomes a major breach.

90%

of organizations outsourcing to MSSPs will focus on detection and response

By 2024, 90% of buyers looking to outsource to security service providers will focus on detection and response

Gartner, The Managed Security Service Landscape is Changing

50%

of organizations will use managed detection and response (MDR) services by 2025

By 2025, 50% of organizations will use MDR services for threat monitoring, detection, and response

Gartner, Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response Services. October 2021

70%

of organizations are affected by the lack of cybersecurity talent

Cybersecurity skills crisis worsens year over year, impacting 70% of organizations

Information Systems Security Association (ISSA). July 2020

27%

is the increase in data breach costs from 2020 to 2021

Organizations are heavily impacted by cyber threats. Breach costs grew from $3.86M in 2020 to $4.24M in 2021

Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021 - IBM

Building a SOC Internally Isn't Easy

It can be hard to build and maintain a modern SOC, or unrealistic. For most businesses, working with a SOC service provider allows them to:

  • Improve security strategies
  • Stay a step ahead of threats
  • Access the latest technology for detection and response
  • Improve their overall cybersecurity posture
Contact Us

Downloads & Resources

 
Video: Value added to SOCs - Miguel Carrero
Thumbnail: eBook
Report: State of the Art Threat Hunting in MSPs
Thumbnail: eBook - Threat Hunting for MSPs
eBook: Threat Hunting for MSPs
SOC ebook
eBook: Modern SOCs and MDR Services
Blog_ESOC_Maturity_Model
Blog: Security Operations Maturity Model II : What is it?
Glowing blue shield with a keyhole in the center
Datasheet: Advanced EPDR for Linux
Blog_ESOC_Measuring
Blog: Security Operations Maturity Model I : Measuring SOC performance
Blog_SOC_5
Blog: Modern SOCs and MDR services V : Modern SOC Key Functions
Blog_SOC_4
Blog: Modern SOCs and MDR services IV: Deployment Models
Blog_SOC_roles
Blog: Modern SOC and MDR Series V: The Different Roles within a Modern SOC
More Resources

Your Path to a Modern SOC Starts Here

Two men in headsets working at a SOC

Optimize Your Security Operations from the Cloud

WatchGuard Endpoint for SOCs is uniquely positioned to provide cutting-edge technologies, empowering your team with the best practices to anticipate unknown and sophisticated threats with confidence.

Find Out How WatchGuard Enables Your SOC >

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Advanced EDR and EPDR

Advanced versions of WatchGuard’s endpoint security solutions provide all the capabilities you’ll find in our standard EDR and EPDR products, but with additional features to proactively search for compromised endpoints and harden them against the most common malwareless attack techniques.

Discover Advanced EDR and EPDR Security Solutions for SOCs >

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