5 Reasons to Outsource Security Operations Centers (SOC-as-a-Service)

Whether you're in the office or working from home, your business still has to juggle the trifecta of cybersecurity headaches: personalized cyberattacks are more widespread and sophisticated than ever, there's a shortage of security expertise, and hackers are increasingly targeting businesses with 1,000 or fewer employees. To alleviate this strain, more companies are outsourcing their security operations to managed security service providers (MSSPs). But choosing the right MSSP also poses its challenges. Working with a vendor that lacks the amenities needed for a truly effective security operations center (SOC) with threat detection and response capabilities leaves holes in their security posture.

Here Are 5 Essentials When Outsourcing Your Security Operations Center to a Managed Service Provider:

1. Real-Time Threat Monitoring

This means having 24x7 continuous monitoring with a focus on threat detection services and forensics for all security incidents. Security information and event management (SIEM) tools are incredibly noisy, making it difficult for a sparsely staffed security team to filter out false alarms and perform adequate forensics on real security alerts that matter. Make sure your SOC provider is capable of detecting threats at all hours of the day so that you have ongoing peace of mind.

2. Network Complexity

Gartner recently identified a burgeoning cybersecurity market known as managed detection and response (MDR). The “detection” element, as covered above, is critical to identifying threats, but to be prescriptive a SOC must also supply incident response (IR). Your organization needs a partner that can help facilitate swift, decisive, accurate, and effective IR, whether you’re dealing with a false alarm, DDoS, ransomware, or a data breach. If it does not supply 24x7 IR, then it’s not a SOC.

3. Proactive Threat Hunting

Cutting-edge, criminal hacking tactics are increasingly difficult to detect, which means that network configurations need to be continually adjusted based on the newest and wiliest cyberthreats. The responsibility is therefore on security operators to learn the unique network topology of their clients and hunt for threats that are most likely to evade detection through traditional methods. This means utilizing relevant, threat-intelligence sources, applying machine learning and user behavior analytics, and leaving no stone unturned in the search for real security incidents that impact customers.

4. Strategic Consulting

As they monitor the network and hunt for new threats, dedicated security engineers will acquire a deep understanding of your organization’s network topology and location of critical assets, which need to be protected with a defense-in-depth security strategy. No less would be expected of an in-house SOC, so why not demand this of an outsourced SOC? In addition to the cloud-based scalable technology and well-defined incident response processes, the expertise of experienced security engineers enable clients to gain insights into their overall security posture. Long term, this helps an organization manage business risk more effectively.

5. Compliance Management

A SOC must be expected to operate with the utmost regard for compliance, whether that’s HIPAA, HITECH, PCI DSS, FFIEC, GLBA, or any other standards to which highly-regulated industries must conform. This means providing templates for required and recommended security controls and basing vulnerability assessments on how well these organizations abide by their respective regulatory standards. Hackers aren’t the only threats to your wallet. Costly penalties for noncompliance can quickly add up, so make sure all risk is managed by your SOC provider. For more information about SOC-as-a-Service solutions, reach out to iCorps for a free IT consultation.