We are in a state of cyber-flux with new and many asymmetrical challenges to cybersecurity. As cybersecurity gaps abound, a new urgency in both industry and government has arisen on how to better protect the cyber landscape.
The Evolving Cyber-Threat Landscape
The digital attack surface has vastly expanded from the transitions by many companies and organizations to remote work, and from more interconnectivity of PCs and smart devices coming online from around the globe. For many companies and institutions, the overall IT perimeter is now more complex and dispersed with on-premises systems, cloud, and edge computing that necessitates more visibility, and a need for better threat detection, analysis, and incident response.
The cyber ecosystem is in a precarious situation. Emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, Machine learning & artificial intelligence, and 5G are creating operational shifts that require new and more robust cybersecurity strategies. Exacerbating the cybersecurity challenge is the global dearth of qualified cybersecurity workers and expertise available to help defend the data at risk.
Finally, but not least of concern is the fact that criminal enterprises and state actors are posing a much more sophisticated and capable threat. They are sharing resources and tactics over Dark Web forums and using advanced hacking tools that enable them to discover vulnerable targets to infiltrate malware and automate attacks.
One vital and important development to meet these numerous cyber-threat challenges is the development of enhanced capabilities in Security Operations Centers (SOCs) used by companies, government, and organizations. SOCs provide an operational risk management structure for organizations to organize, monitor and respond to cybersecurity threats.
An effective SOC can manage corporate systems, control systems, and physical security. It is designed to deliver continuous prevention, protection, detection, and mitigation of threats to systems. SOC teams also uncover vulnerabilities, respond to threats, and handle incidents that may be in progress on your networks or systems. A SOC’s success quotient depends on the rapid and accurate interpretation and response to threats by analysts and the security team. Please see my article on the key functions and operations of SOCs in Homeland Security Today
Also, security operations center benefits are well defined in an article called “Security Operations Center Trends for 2023” by Gilad David Maayan:
· Improved Security Posture: A SOC helps to improve an organization’s security posture by continuously monitoring for security threats and vulnerabilities and taking appropriate action to address them. This can help prevent security incidents and protect the organization’s assets.
Enhanced Visibility: A SOC provides a centralized view of the organization’s security posture, allowing security professionals to easily see what is happening across the organization’s networks, systems, and applications.
- Improved Response Time: A SOC enables organizations to respond more quickly to security incidents and threats, as it provides a dedicated team of security professionals who are trained to handle these types of events.
- Better Coordination: A SOC can coordinate the organization’s overall security efforts, including the implementation and maintenance of security policies and procedures, the deployment of security technologies, and the training of personnel on security best practices.
- Improved Compliance: A SOC can help organizations to meet regulatory and compliance requirements by providing a structured and documented approach to security management.
New SOC Products And Solutions To Optimize SOC Functions And Capabilities
Every year the RSA conference in San Francisco operates as a venue where many new cyber technologies are introduced for consideration to IT and security teams. SOC technologies have become a significant focus of those seeking improved cybersecurity. Other venues and conferences are also discussing the important role of SOCS for cybersecurity as the threat matrix grows. I have selected a few examples of solutions and products in different areas of SOC operations that can help advance SOCs and their operators for the years ahead.
A New Suite of Products Assisting SOC Operators With AI, Automation, and Connected Interface
IBM, a historical leader in developing tools for SOCs, has responded to new SOC challenges with an array of AI and security solutions designed to unify and accelerate the security analyst experience across their entire process of threat detection, investigation and response The IBM QRadar Suite offers a comprehensive set of security software built around a new user interface that is embedded with AI, and connects security data and response workflows between SOC analyst toolsets. It is delivered as SaaS and is designed so businesses small, medium, and large can select and customize products from the suite that specially fit their unique situations.
Specifically for SOC operators these products include AI/automation innovations for:
· Alert triage; contextualizing threats, reducing false positives, and automatically prioritizing or closing alerts with AI trained on prior analyst response patterns,
· Threat investigation; with the system automatically conducting early investigation steps that analysts would normally do manually, such as searching across systems for other evidence related to the security incident, and compiling results into easy to digest format for analysts to review and respond.
According to IBM’s press release from the RSA conference, there are three core design elements of the QRadar Suite that immediately garnered my attention that bring immediate advantages to SOC operators to help ameliorate cyber-threats:
- Unified Analyst Experience: Refined in collaboration with hundreds of real-world users, the suite features a common, modernized user interface across all products: designed to dramatically increase analyst speed and efficiency across the entire attack chain. It is embedded with enterprise-grade AI and automation capabilities that have been shown to speed alert investigation and triage by 55% in the first year.
- Cloud Delivery, Speed & Scale: Delivered as a service on AWS, QRadar Suite products allow for simplified deployment, visibility and integration across cloud environments and data sources. The suite also includes a new, cloud-native log management capability optimized for highly efficient data ingestion, rapid search, and analytics at scale.
- Open Foundation, Pre-Built Integrations: The suite brings together the core technologies needed across threat detection, investigation, and response – built around an open foundation, an extensive partner ecosystem, and more than 900 pre-built integrations that provide strong interoperability between IBM and third-party toolsets.