Among the most critical concerns in the cybersecurity community is the apparent scarcity of a workforce with the requisite skills and training to keep pace with the expanding attack surface.
According to recent research from ISC2, the global industry could benefit from over 3 million additional cybersecurity professionals.
The natural growth of IT infrastructure and digital commerce are among the drivers of increased demand for cybersecurity jobs and have consequently broadened the threat landscape while incentivizing cybercriminals.
A simple - and popular - solution to the security talent shortage has seen cybersecurity providers increasingly implementing automated tools in SOC operations.
On a fundamental level, this allows for traditionally monotonous tasks to be maintained while freeing our teams to focus manual efforts on cognitive decision-making.
The vast quantities of information relayed by automated tools therefore bring SOC teams their fair share of pros and cons.
Ultimately, the modern SOC requires a solid procedural foundation, but also a new set of processes that rely on human innovation.
Striking a balance between human creativity and automation.
For SOCs, discernment may be found along a continuum.
On one side, alert triage as well as reporting and metrics benefit significantly from the consistency of automation, while quality threat modeling and hunting are rewarded with the creativity of human innovation.
Automated and cloud-enabled services have allowed organizations to sift through data at unprecedented volumes, and with proper investment can ensure that SOCs are optimizing their continuous management of detection rules.
Injecting human creativity into your SOC is a benefit to the human team as well as to the automated operations.
Striking this balance between each set of strengths while remaining cognizant of shortcomings is critical to deploying a consummate SOC. Utilizing Proactive Threat Intelligence.
Presently, SOC teams are fully aware that threat intelligence operations and management are well worth the time and effort.
The goal for a superior SOC should be to take advantage of proactivity that drives the creating and tuning of unique security controls.
The MITRE ATT&CK framework is a fine example of how SOC teams can evolve with a proactive, informed approach to threat-defense.
Since its creation nearly a decade ago, the framework has benefitted teams previously using threat intelligence in a reactive mode to dynamically drive the creation and fine-tuning of security controls.
This allows SOC teams to significantly reduce erroneous alerts and focus their time and energy on the alerts stemming from specialized rules meant to protect their organization's specialized assets.
The Future of the SOC. While the hybrid model of SOCs and the workforce behind them may require evolution, our understanding needn't follow suit.
SOC modernization extends far beyond technology alone, providing organizations with an opportunity to reassess skills and roles and support a distributed workforce - while incorporating human creativity and innovation as a strategic force multiplier.
This Cyber News was published on www.cybersecurity-insiders.com. Publication date: Wed, 07 Feb 2024 20:43:04 +0000