Security Automation Brings Focus to Your SOC

Security automation is used to address security operations tasks without human intervention and is an important component of security orchestration. When automation is applied, actions typically taken by a security analyst to prevent, detect and remediate cyberthreats are instead handled in a machine-led way.

Many of the day-to-day processes in a SOC are repetitive and can take an unnecessary amount of time when done manually. Pair this with an ever-growing influx of alerts and a shortage of available security talent, and you have a recipe for security operations inefficiency and risk.

Security automation alleviates these challenges because it is ideal for activities that require a high amount of manual work, require fast response, happen regularly and call for a significant degree of user involvement. Automating these items greatly improves the efficiency and effectiveness of security operations and frees up analyst time for more valuable tasks.

Build, run and automate playbooks for more predictable, rapid incident response

Security operations teams often lack documented processes, relying on tribal knowledge to triage, investigate and respond to incidents. This approach comes with high risk as each analyst executes processes differently, and knowledge leaves the team in times of staff turnover.

When processes are documented via playbooks, security operations teams retain vital internal knowledge and security automation can be applied to ensure that certain activities take place consistently. Automated actions happen the same way every time, rapidly and without the need for analyst intervention, bringing a higher degree of predictability to the SOC.

The Siemplify platform’s intuitive drag-and-drop playbook designer puts the power of process building and security automation in the hands of security analysts. An integrated development environment (IDE) provides powerful customization capabilities. And flexible automation enables security teams to implement their ideal balance of fully automated and analyst-led processes at the click of a button.

Keep analysts focused on mitigating truly malicious activity.

A large portion of the alerts security teams receive every day are false positives. Add to that the alerts related to known bad activity and it’s clear why analysts don’t have the crucial time they need to investigate and respond to real threats to their organization.

In the absence of security automation, a security analyst has to investigate every single alert to determine whether it is a known good, known bad or unknown. This process is repetitive, time-consuming and a real morale killer.

Security automation can identify and close false positives as well as address known bad activity without the need for analyst intervention. When the actions related to addressing these alerts are taken care of automatically, the alerts that bubble up to an analyst are those that truly need their attention and expertise. In this way, a security automation solution can help illuminate which alerts require additional investigation.

Accelerate investigations and put relevant data at your analysts’ fingertips.

The potential scope of security automation is unlimited. It can copy many of the investigative and data gathering steps a security analyst would have taken and complete them in a fraction of the time.

Without automation, when detection systems find a possible phishing threat, analysts are notified with alerts. These security analysts then have to compare the threat against their existing threat intel to determine the nature of the alert. Then they will have to investigate all email attachments, all recipients, whether the attachments were opened, and scan for infections. Security automation can automatically gather and cross-reference these details, ensuring analysts have the data readily available to make critical decisions and take decisive action.

Taken a step further, Siemplify’s platform applies security automation to correlate and instantly group related events from different systems into a single case and storyline. Analysts automatically get a holistic view of a threat for even more efficient investigation and analysis.

Create consistent, automated reports for continuous improvement.

Whether to satisfy compliance auditors or internal stakeholders, security operations teams must be able to report on their activities and the outcome of their efforts. In most SOCs, this requires analysts and managers to piece together data from across their security ecosystem, representing yet another arduous, manual effort.

Using security automation, security teams can aggregate performance data in real time and easily create tailored reports for a variety of stakeholders. Siemplify’s platform includes a powerful templating engine that automatically gathers the relevant data for any report, giving analysts and SOC managers the ability to generate customized reports with a single click. And automation can be used to set up and distribute curated performance data on a set schedule without the need for analyst action.

Automate case assignments and escalations for smoother operations.

Security operations teams are always on. New alerts come in that need an analyst assigned. Events get escalated for deeper investigation and analysis. And in a world where most SOCs are 24×7 operations, handoffs occur multiple times a day. Keeping track of this matrix of activity is daunting for even the most seasoned security operations manager.

Day-to-day SOC management activities are great candidates for security automation precisely because they are routine. Solutions like Siemplify give managers the ability to automatically assign cases to the appropriate analyst. Through playbooks, escalations can be defined and automated based on the processes that are unique to your organizations. Automating both of these tasks ultimately streamlines shift handoffs as well.