Chat with a SOC Leader

At a recent conference we had a Q&A with SOC team lead, <REDACTED> from <REDACTED>. The team is newish and growing so they are embedding SOAR into the team from day 1, aka SoarNativeSOC

I’ve not worked in a SOC for over 6 years so it was a great chance to see how the world has changed (though amusingly it hasn’t, same incidents, same challenges).

I thought I would share my favourite takeaway:

  • The company is going through hyper growth, with tough expectations that the SOC scales at the same pace. SOAR helps reduce the immediate need for security head count and lets them grow at a lower controlled rate.
  • First use case for SOAR was phishing simply due to the quickest return of the biggest amount of time
  • As well as simply handling real phishing enquiries, SOAR was used to track phishing tests and auto training and enablement for those who fail
  • They have identified a use case for travellers planning on a trip to <scary_country>. The playbook informs the user, limit their access in the org, put them in a high risk group, etc
  • Also a use case to monitor for users activity in new countries. SOAR sends a quick “is this login you?” over Slack/HipChat/Email. “no” results in password resets etc. The advantage to the business is 1 less solution to buy in the future, and one less technology to train/enable with.
  • SOAR has helped increase the team’s reputation in the company due to the speed of their service (which underpins AppSec, not just security)
  • Playbooks know how to add team members automatically. So if a incident/playbook finds malware it automatically adds a Malware researcher to the ticket
  • SOAR is good for IOC searching, which we should remember is NOT the same as threat hunting. The former is simple and quick, the second requires a lot more effort, time, expertise, context, etc.

Thanks <REDACTED> it was a great session!

Andy