Keeping your systems secure is a modern challenge that all businesses now face when they function online, and SOAR cybersecurity systems are becoming a standard tool that companies use to meet those challenges. Here is everything you need to know about SOAR and how it can hone your strategy to offer the ultimate protection to your digital world.
What Is SOAR in Cybersecurity?
SOAR stands for Security, Orchestration, Automation, and Response. It is a comprehensive cybersecurity approach that combines the power of advanced technologies and human expertise to enhance an organization’s ability to detect, analyze, and respond to security incidents and threats. IT teams and other security experts are bogged down with the continuous onslaught of cyber threats; a SOAR-based strategy works to ease that burden by automating processing and making responses to events more streamlined and accurate.
The three main security pain points that SOAR addresses are threat and vulnerability management, security incident response, and security operations. SOAR can be a comprehensive solution for all of these components, especially so that organizations can quickly respond to threats and prevent future occurrences without interrupting their workflows.
Just like threats in the online business world advance, so do cybersecurity solutions like SOAR. SOAR builds upon basic security principles and tools. Especially over the last several years, it has focused on improving integration, automation capabilities, threat intelligence, customization, collaboration, analytics, and adaptability to modern IT infrastructures. These advancements enable organizations to respond to security incidents faster, with greater accuracy, and in a more coordinated manner.
Components and Functionality of SOAR
Each element of SOAR is built out with different tools, technologies, and techniques, along with specializations and jobs that a security team tackles.
Orchestration in SOAR
Orchestration has everything to do with integrating security tools and systems so that all moving parts are cohesive and unified. This integration allows for seamless communication and data sharing between different tools, such as SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) systems, threat intelligence platforms, ticketing systems, endpoint security solutions, and more. Collaboration is simplified by managing and automating workflows and defining the roles and responsibilities of different teams involved in the incident response process.
Orchestration also plays a crucial role in incident prioritization and escalation. Organizations need to establish a systematic approach to assess and prioritize security incidents based on their severity, impact, and potential risks. Orchestration systems make that possible by providing predefined rules or algorithms that, when applied to a system, evaluate incident attributes and determine the appropriate response actions. This repeatable and reliable system helps teams act on the provided insights for further investigation, containment, or resolution.
Automation in SOAR
Automation is a part of hundreds of workflows, and especially in the past several years, we are seeing even more applications in the digital security sector. Automated threat detection and analysis are becoming more accurate and helpful with tools like machine learning algorithms and other advanced techniques. These platforms can identify patterns, anomalies, and indicators of compromise (IOCs) that may indicate potential security threats.
SOAR also leverages automation for response playbook execution, or the execution of predefined response playbooks or workflows. These playbooks outline a series of automated actions and responses to be taken when specific security events or incidents occur. Triggers can be based on specific events, such as the detection of a certain type of malware, suspicious network behavior, or the occurrence of a critical security event.
Once triggered, the SOAR platform automatically performs the necessary actions, such as isolating affected systems, blocking malicious activities, collecting additional forensic data, and initiating remediation processes. Whatever the case, automation helps reduce false positives and human error, makes it easier to respond to incidents quickly and consistently, and takes the load off of IT teams so that your experts can focus on more in-depth strategy.
Response in SOAR
When it comes to responding to incidents, SOAR platforms are designed to cover all of your bases and provide total incident tracking and case management functionality. They allow organizations to centralize and manage all security incidents systematically. Each incident is tracked throughout its lifecycle, from detection to resolution. Relevant information is recorded, assigned to teams or individuals, and regularly updated.
Collaboration about incident response is also much easier since SOAR platforms offer features like integrated chat, ticketing systems, and collaboration tools to streamline communication and information sharing. Security teams, analysts, incident responders, IT staff, and management can collaborate effectively, share insights, exchange updates, and coordinate response efforts within a centralized platform.
As an added perk, SOAR tools also generate reports and provide metrics to support continuous improvement in incident response processes. They offer customizable dashboards and visualizations that provide real-time insights into incident trends, response times, bottlenecks, and the effectiveness of response actions.
Benefits and Advantages of SOAR in Cybersecurity
What is SOAR offering modern organizations in terms of benefits? Here is just the tip of the iceberg of the cybersecurity rewards that SOAR offers.
Enhanced operational efficiency
By streamlining processes, reducing manual functions, and leaning on automation, SOAR is time-saving and reduces the strain on teams. This efficiency means that your team also produces improved incident response times and builds more consistency and accuracy in response actions.
Strengthened threat detection and response
With increased visibility for threat detection and response, everyone in your organization has the structure, know-how, and resources so that incidents are managed at top efficiency. Automated threat intelligence gathering and analysis makes diagnostics much faster and more reliable, and additional incident triage and investigation are just as manageable. When serious threats do arise, rapid containment and mitigation of security incidents are also possible with SOAR security solutions.
Scalability and flexibility for evolving security landscapes
Organizations with huge fleets of devices, extensive cloud platforms, and endless endpoints are always at risk of cyber threats. Having a SOAR platform to fall back on centralizes your management of security tools and workflows for any workload. Designed to handle a large volume of security events and incidents, these platforms can scale to accommodate the growing needs of an organization, whether it’s an increase in the number of security tools, the volume of data generated, or the complexity of security threats.
SOAR provides flexibility in defining and customizing workflows, playbooks, and automation rules. Organizations can tailor their incident response processes to align with their specific needs, compliance requirements, and evolving threat landscape. This adaptability ensures that the SOAR platform can be configured to address unique security challenges faced by the organization. Such flexibility also means integration with existing security infrastructures is painless.
Implementing SOAR in Cybersecurity Operations
When trying to bring SOAR platforms and practices into your operations, here are some of the best ways to prepare your organization:
- Assessing organizational readiness. Identify relevant use cases and goals, evaluate existing security processes and tools, and involve any necessary resource planning specialists and stakeholders.
- Selecting and integrating SOAR platforms. Research different platforms to understand the best options for your operations and ensure that you can integrate with SIEM systems. Also, leverage customization and configuration capabilities in SOAR platforms to perfect your workflows.
- Ensuring successful adoption and utilization. Conduct training and skill development for security teams, continuously monitor and optimize your SOAR implementation, and actively collaborate between security operations and incident response teams.
Overcoming Challenges and Best Practices in SOAR Implementation
As you aim to integrate, keep the following in mind.
- Addressing data quality and integration issues. It is essential to ensure that data sources are accurate, reliable, and properly integrated into the SOAR platform to enable effective incident analysis and response.
- Balancing automation with human decision-making. Striking the right balance between automated systems and human judgment is crucial to leverage the speed and efficiency of automation while considering the nuanced decision-making capabilities of security professionals.
- Ensuring compliance and regulatory requirements. Compliance with relevant industry regulations and standards should be integrated into the SOAR implementation to meet legal obligations, protect sensitive data, and maintain trust with stakeholders.
- Establishing metrics and measuring success. Every company functions a little differently and may prioritize certain concerns or activities above others. Defining clear metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) helps assess the effectiveness of the SOAR implementation, measure improvements, and demonstrate the value of the solution to stakeholders.
- Collaborating and knowledge sharing across teams. Promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing among different teams involved in incident response fosters a more cohesive and efficient response, leveraging diverse expertise and accelerating the resolution of security incidents.
- Staying up to date with evolving threats and technologies. Continuously monitoring and staying informed about emerging threats and advancements in cybersecurity technologies ensures that SOAR implementation remains relevant, effective, and adaptive to evolving security challenges.
The Future of SOAR
If you operate online at all, SOAR in cybersecurity is one of the best ways to ensure that your assets are protected and that you have an evergreen strategy in place for all your security needs. If you want an improved incident response process, your organization can implement SOAR practices and platforms, which are always experiencing ongoing development and evolving with the ever-changing cybersecurity landscape. Learn more about SOAR resources with Ontinue today!