How SOC Team Will Helps You Analysing Data ?

what is soc and siem tools

Although IT professionals will know all about SOCs and SIEM tools, business executives might need bringing up to speed. SOC stands for “Security Operations Center.” Dealing with cyber security on a passive basis alone is like building a wall around a castle and just hoping the enemy doesn’t find a way through or over it. Although there are different definitions, in most cases an SOC centralizes the security function of a business or organization. Setting up an SOC involves employing a team of people and setting up processes to monitor a host system or IT network and respond to any security incidents. Occasionally, one-person SOCs are found, but this is the exception. Every SOC needs some kind of SIEM tool. SIEM stands for Security Information and Event Management, and so SIEM software is a set of tools for providing the information needed to detect and manage security events.
More specifically, SIEM tools aggregate and normalize data from various sources. This data can come from message logs (syslog), OS logs, end point devices, firewall/IDS output and network flow logs. Rather than simply logging all the data, SIEM tools then strip out anything irrelevant. This is called normalization. SIEM software then uses intelligent correlation rules to highlight links between events ready for analysis by a human IT support team. Analysts can then carry out NetFlow analysis and other techniques to investigate the reasons for any anomalies and, where necessary, take action to protect the business’s IT infrastructure.

Importance of an Effective Security Operations Center

A security operations center is an organizational structure that continuously monitors and analyzes the security procedures of an organization. It also defends against security breaches and actively isolates and mitigates security risks. The aim of the SOC team is to identify, analyze and react to cybersecurity threats using a reliable set of processes and technology solutions. The SOC staff generally includes managers, security analysts, and engineers who work together with organizational incident response teams to address security issues quickly.
A SOC tracks and analyzes activity on servers, endpoints, networks, applications, databases, websites and other technology systems. Its team members provide a critical layer of analysis needed to seek out any irregular activity that could suggest a security incident. While technology systems such as IPS or firewalls can prevent basic attacks, human expertise is needed to respond to serious incidents. Security information and event management (SIEM) is a solution that empowers SOC analysts by collecting security data from across the enterprise, identifying events that have security relevance and bringing them to the attention of the SOC team. A modern SIEM puts all the relevant information in front of security specialists to help them identify and mitigate incidents faster

5 Basic Responsibilities of a SOC Team

The SOC team ensures that possible security incidents are accurately identified, analyzed, guarded against, investigated and made known.
1. IMPLEMENT AND MANAGE SECURITY TOOLS A SOC team should have a suite of technology products that provide insight into the organization’s security environment. The SOC needs to appoint a skilled security team that can select and leverage the appropriate tools for a job. The team should evaluate the request for proposals (RFPs) from vendors, take into account system integration requirements, develop solution trials and demos, and assess interoperability with current infrastructure. Basic security tools include firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention technology, threat and vulnerability management tools, data loss prevention tools, filtering technologies, traffic inspection solutions, reporting technology and data analytics platforms. The SOC may also have access to enterprise forensic tools that support incident response investigations. On top of this toolset, a SIEM solution can help aggregate security events and generate alerts for analysts to investigate. Next-generation SIEM tools include new capabilities like User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) and Security Orchestration and Automation (SOAR), which can save time for analysts and help identify threats that traditional tools could not. For an example of a next-gen SIEM solution that includes UEBA and SOAR, see Exabeam’s Security Management Platform.
2. INVESTIGATE SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITIES, CONTAIN AND PREVENT THEM With the assistance of security monitoring tools, the SOC team looks into suspicious activity within IT systems and networks. Typically, they do this by receiving and analyzing alerts from the SIEM, which may contain signs of compromise and related threat intelligence. The team performs triage on the alerts, understands the extent of the threat and responds. Organizations may not be able to entirely stop threats from entering their network, but they can stop threats from spreading. If a network system is compromised, the SOC should identify the infected hosts and prevent them from affecting the rest of the network. The SOC can use controls on switches, routers, and virtual local area network (VLANs) to stop the threat from spreading. The SOC should correlate and validate alerts. SOC staff can contextualize these events within the network environment of the business, and coordinate response activities with key staff in real time.
3. REDUCE DOWNTIME AND ENSURE BUSINESS CONTINUITY Businesses need to ensure their network and systems run with minimal or no downtime. It was once possible to shut down a mail server infected by a virus for cleanup, but in today’s environment the business cannot sustain downtime of critical infrastructure such as email.
In the event of a breach, the SOC can proactively notify the appropriate business stakeholders about serious security events. If possible, risks are mitigated before security events reach key business infrastructure, and if they do reach critical systems, redundancy must be in place to ensure business continuity.
4. SECURITY STRATEGY SOCs ideally function as shared service centers that provide value to business stakeholders and help them meet their agendas. SOCs are cross-functional organizations that centralize operations carried out by different departments. Organizations should define the SOC’s operating model and governance to ensure accountability, oversee communication, and guide interactions, with individuals from IT, IR, HR, legal, compliance and other groups. A clear line of authority can limit confusion during critical emergency actions, such as connectivity termination or complete system shutdown.
5. AUDIT AND COMPLIANCE SUPPORT A SOC is often responsible for auditing systems to meet compliance requirements for government, corporate and industry regulations such as SB 1386, HIPAA, and Sarbanes-Oxley. Efficient access to threat information, patch levels, identity and access control data is essential for compliance.

In the past, organizations used existing documentation to create new documentation for an audit. This process is prone to errors and time-consuming. When correctly managed by security teams, modern SOCs use security tools such as the SIEM, which aggregates security data from across the organization and generates compliance audits and reports.

Going Beyond SIEM

Imagining the SOC of the Future

As the IoT grows, the current SOC model is going to become increasingly obsolete. On the other hand, AI and machine learning is likely to make security software smarter. Although it is impossible to guess exactly what the SOC of the future will look like, by integrating SIEM, UBA and other tools with a triage platform, orchestration software and case management features, companies can at least begin the process of building a future-proof security center.
Rather than being focused on developing security strategy, designing security architecture, or implementing protective measures, the SOC team is responsible for the ongoing, operational component of enterprise information security. Security operations center staff is comprised primarily of security analysts who work together to detect, analyze, respond to, report on, and prevent cybersecurity incidents. Additional capabilities of some SOCs can include advanced forensic analysis, cryptanalysis, and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.

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