Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are constantly under siege by cyberattack threats like phishing attempts and malicious documents, and that problem will only grow worse. At the same time, budgets are tight for everyone in a challenging economy. Plus, it’s hard for SMBs to get the talent that they need for cybersecurity due to an ongoing cybersecurity talent shortage. That leaves businesses in a quandary; how can they protect themselves from a devastating cyberattack without hiring more cybersecurity specialists? The answer to that question is to invest in a managed SOC.

What are the benefits of a SOC?

A SOC, or Security Operation Center, also known as a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution, is a command center made up of highly skilled security personnel, processes and cybersecurity technologies that continuously monitor for malicious activity while preventing, detecting and responding to cyber incidents. Considering the constantly growing risk of cyberattacks on businesses of all sizes, even the smallest organizations need to have continuous, 24/7 monitoring and response service available to them to stay out of trouble.

A business can build a SOC or outsource to a managed SOC solution, but either choice has big benefits and big drawbacks. Setting up and operating an in-house SOC is challenging and pricey. In these turbulent economic times, SMBs are trying to get the most out of every penny. That means that most IT departments are stretched thin, without much money in the budget for new equipment or more headcount. Hiring the right cybersecurity pros is also difficult and expensive – the global cybersecurity workforce gap has increased by 26.2% compared to 2021, with 3.4 million more workers needed to fulfill today’s demand. Managed SOC alleviates those burdens.

Choosing between building a SOC or leveraging a Managed SOC:

Many SMBs envision building a SOC, only to discover how complex and costly a task it actually is. Leveraging a Managed SOC lowers the barrier to entry, making MDR easy and affordable. Keep these key points of consideration in mind when looking at your options:

• Personnel: Most SOCs are 24/7/365 operation centers. Creating your own means that you will need to have a large enough team on the payroll to handle its needs.
• Availability: Many sophisticated attacks tend to start on a Friday evening while even more occur on holiday weekends. Ensuring personnel are available at off times or during holidays can be difficult and expensive.
• Talent: Obtaining and retaining talent is a challenge. Unfortunately, the market demand for security professionals far outweighs the market availability. This drives up the cost of hiring cybersecurity professionals and makes it harder to keep trained experts on staff.
• Investment: Advanced cybersecurity tools aren’t cheap and can be costly to set up. For example, in a SOC, you’ll need many defensive tools like threat intelligence feeds and malware analysis solutions, as well as experienced staffers who can utilize them to their fullest extent.

Identifying key capabilities of a Managed SOC Service:

The right Managed SOC service will include these key capabilities:

• 24/7/365 service: The SOC must be operational every hour of every day, all year long. This is the most crucial factor to consider since many attackers try and time their attacks when companies have less staff available, especially over holiday weekends — ransomware attack rates climb by about 30% during the winter holiday season.
• Integrated threat intelligence: Threat intelligence is the lifeblood of a SOC. Ensure the SOC you choose brings in multiple threat feeds to quickly identify the latest emerging threats.
• Threat hunting: To find and neutralize threats, a SOC must always have experienced cybersecurity analysts on hand. These experts will proactively hunt for latent threats and other security dangers that could be hiding in a company’s network.
• Expert analysis: A SOC is only as good as its cybersecurity experts. Ensure the analysts and threat hunters your SOC relies on are true cybersecurity experts, trained to detect suspicious behaviour as well as stealthy threats.
• Time to resolution: These days, it’s less of an “if’ and more of a “when” a company will face a cyberattack. Discovering a cyberattack quickly and limiting the damage that it does is critical to a company’s survival. Ask how the SOC will respond to and remediate an incident.
• SIEM-less log monitoring: Find out if you’re required to deploy a security information and event management system (SIEM) for the SOC to function. Ideally, you want to have a Managed SOC solution that does not require a SIEM — technology that can be very costly and cumbersome to manage.
• MITRE ATT&CK alignment: It’s one thing to have a CSF in place but another to be able to leverage the MITRE ATT&CK framework in the event of an attack. Understanding how the MITRE ATT&CK framework can help prevent and mitigate cyberattacks is important for incident response.
• Intrusion monitoring: The right SOC will be able to detect suspicious activity in real time, including connections to terrorist nation-states and unauthorized TCP/UDP services, as well as backdoor connections to command-and-control servers.

Source: ID Agent