National Cyber Warfare Foundation (NCWF)

Welcome back, aspiring cyberwarriors! In today’s highly targeted environment, a well-designed Security Operations Center (SOC) isn’t just an advantage – it’s essential for a business’s survival. In addition to that, the job market has far more jobs on the blue team than the red team. Getting into a SOC is often touted as one of […]

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Welcome back, aspiring cyberwarriors!

In today’s highly targeted environment, a well-designed Security Operations Center (SOC) isn’t just an advantage – it’s essential for a business’s survival. In addition to that, the job market has far more jobs on the blue team than the red team. Getting into a SOC is often touted as one of the more accessible entry points into cybersecurity.

This article will delve into some of the key concepts of SOC.

Step #1: Purpose and Components

The core purpose of a Security Operations Center is to detect, analyze, and respond to cyber threats in real time, thereby protecting an organization’s assets, data, and reputation. To achieve this, a SOC continuously monitors logs, alerts, and telemetry from networks, endpoints, and applications, maintaining constant situational awareness.

Detection involves identifying four key security concerns.

Vulnerabilities are weaknesses in software or operating systems that attackers can exploit beyond their authorized permissions. For example, the SOC might find Windows computers needing patches for published vulnerabilities. While not strictly the SOC’s responsibility, unfixed vulnerabilities impact company-wide security.

Unauthorized activity occurs when attackers use compromised credentials to access company systems. Quick detection is important before damage occurs, using clues like geographic location to identify suspicious logins.

Policy violations happen when users break security rules designed to protect the company and ensure compliance. These violations vary by organization but might include downloading pirated media or transmitting confidential files insecurely.

Intrusions involve unauthorized access to systems and networks, such as attackers exploiting web applications or users getting infected through malicious websites.
Once incidents are detected, the SOC supports the incident response process by minimizing impact and conducting root cause analysis alongside the incident response team.

Step #2: Building a Baseline

Before you can detect threats, you must first understand what “normal” looks like in your environment. This is the foundation upon which all SOC operations are built.

Your baseline should include detailed documentation of:

Network Architecture: Map out all network segments, VLANs, DMZs, and trust boundaries. Understanding how data flows through your network is critical for detecting lateral movement and unauthorized access attempts. Document which systems communicate with each other, what protocols they use, and what ports are typically open.

Normal Traffic Patterns: Establish what typical network traffic looks like during different times of day, days of the week, and during special events like month-end processing or quarterly reporting. This includes bandwidth utilization, connection counts, DNS queries, and external communications.

User Behavior Baselines: Document normal user activities, including login times, typical applications accessed, data transfer volumes, and geographic locations. For example, if your accounting department typically logs in between 8 AM and 6 PM local time, a login at 3 AM should trigger an investigation. Similarly, if a user who normally accesses 5-10 files per day suddenly downloads 5,000 files, that’s a deviation worth investigating.

System Performance Metrics: Establish normal CPU usage, memory consumption, disk I/O, and process execution patterns for critical systems. Cryptocurrency miners, rootkits, and other malware often create performance anomalies that stand out when compared against baselines.

Step #3: The Role of People

Despite increasing automation, human oversight remains essential in SOC operations. Security solutions generate numerous alerts that create significant noise. Without human intervention, teams waste time and resources investigating irrelevant issues.

The SOC team operates through a tiered analyst structure with supporting roles.

Level 1 Analysts serve as first responders, performing basic alert triage to determine if detections are genuinely harmful and reporting findings through proper channels. When detections require deeper investigation, Level 2 Analysts correlate data from multiple sources to conduct thorough analysis. Level 3 Analysts are experienced professionals who proactively hunt for threat indicators and lead incident response activities, including containment, eradication, and recovery of critical severity incidents escalated from lower tiers.

Supporting these analysts are Security Engineers who deploy and configure the security solutions the team relies on. Detection Engineers develop the security rules and logic that enable these solutions to identify harmful activities, though Level 2 and 3 Analysts sometimes handle this responsibility. The SOC Manager oversees team processes, provides operational support, and maintains communication with the organization’s CISO regarding security posture and team efforts.

Step # 4: The Detection-to-Response Pipeline

When a potential security incident is detected, every second counts. Your SOC needs clearly defined processes for triaging, investigating, and responding to alerts.

This pipeline typically follows these stages:

Alert Triage: Not all alerts are created equal. Your SOC analysts must quickly determine which alerts represent genuine threats versus false positives. Implement alert enrichment that automatically adds context—such as asset criticality, user risk scores, and threat intelligence—to help analysts prioritize their work. Use a tiered priority system (P1-Critical, P2-High, P3-Medium, P4-Low) based on potential business impact.

Investigation and Analysis: Once an alert is prioritized, analysts must investigate to determine the scope and nature of the incident. This requires access to multiple data sources, forensic tools, and the ability to correlate events across time and systems. Document your investigation procedures for common scenarios (phishing, malware infection, unauthorized access) to ensure consistent and thorough analysis. Every investigation should answer the five Ws: what happened? where it occurred? When did it take place? Why did it happen? And how did it unfold?

Containment and Eradication: When you confirm a security incident, your first priority is containment to prevent further damage. This might involve isolating infected systems, disabling compromised accounts, or blocking malicious network traffic.

Recovery and Remediation: After eradicating the threat, safely restore affected systems to normal operation. This may involve rebuilding compromised systems from clean backups, rotating credentials, patching vulnerabilities, and implementing additional security controls.

Post-Incident Review: Every significant incident should conclude with a lessons-learned session. What went well? What could be improved? Were our playbooks accurate? Did we have the right tools and access? Use these insights to update your procedures, improve your detection capabilities, and refine your security controls.

Step #5: Technology

At a minimum, a functional SOC needs several essential technologies working together:

SIEM Platform: The central nervous system of your SOC that aggregates, correlates, and analyzes security events from across your environment. Popular options include Splunk, for which we offer a dedicated course.

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Provides deep visibility into endpoint activities, detects suspicious behavior, and enables remote investigation and response.

Firewall: A firewall functions purely for network security and acts as a barrier between your internal and external networks (such as the Internet). It monitors incoming and outgoing network traffic and filters any unauthorized traffic.

Besides those core platforms, other security solutions such as antivirus, SOAR, and various niche tools each play distinct roles. Each organization selects technology that matches its specific requirements, so no two SOCs are exactly alike.

Summary

A Security Operations Center (SOC) protects organizations from cyber threats. It watches networks, computers, and applications to find problems like security weaknesses, unauthorized access, rule violations, and intrusions.

A good SOC needs three things: understanding what normal activity looks like, having a skilled team with clear roles, and following a structured process to handle threats. The team works in levels – starting with basic alert checking, then deeper investigation, and finally threat response and recovery.

If you want to get a deep understanding of SIEM and SOC workflow, consider our SOC Analyst Lvl 1 course.