By The Atlas Team | Tags: SOC
Cyber threats are increasing daily, and many cases occur daily where both small and large companies and businesses go through irreplaceable harm and loss due to cyber threats. Is it impossible for companies and organizations to protect themselves and their valued data by themselves without having to hire someone? Even though it's not an impossible task, it is more vulnerable and inclined to failure. This is why having a dedicated and experienced team providing Security Operations Center (SOC) and DBA solutions ensure more safety and continuous monitoring, making you and your company feel safer and out of the danger zone.
The importance of SOC is still significantly underestimated, which may harm companies in the future since the number of cyber attacks and threats is not declining but only spiking up.
What Exactly Is SOC?
Security Operations Center (SOC) continuously checks and monitors the company's security and data to prevent cyber attacks and threats, which allay the risks of data theft. Companies hire SOC teams to perform various tasks, including taking stocks of accessible resources, preventing and preparing problems and their maintenance, monitoring and managing security measures, and timely recovery when needed.
The job of SOC has more to it than we think, but without it, the risks related to cyberattacks may increase. In short, the most basic way to explain the significance and job of the SOC team is to reduce and remove all internal and external security threats.
7 Basic Problems SOC Teams Have to Tackle
As we already mentioned, the SOC team has many responsibilities, and now, we will mention some of the most fundamental challenges that SOC teams have to face and deal with.
- Having Trouble Assembling the Team
The SOC provider's biggest challenge is assembling the team and ensuring that all positions and roles are filled by employing skilled people. There are quite a few roles in the SOC, like threat hunters, managers, engineers, architects, etc. Every role is vital to get the work done effectively, which calls for all the job roles being occupied by the right number of appropriately skilled people.
DBA support services providers help manage and secure very crucial databases. The challenge is that the skills required to be employed are not a piece of cake, and not many people are experts in those fields, and that is why the number of experts who can be employed and are fit for the job roles decreases immediately.
- Short Work Life of Employees
It is said that people in the SOC work for 26 months on average and leave since the work pressure here is intense, leading to mental pressure and physical fatigue. Why is the work pressure so high?
The cybercriminals only need one slight chance to cause a lot of harm to the company, and hence the SOC team members have to be careful 24x7. They have to carry out the same checks and scans repeatedly to ensure that everything is okay, which can be very monotonous and tiresome after a point in time. This leads to many employees giving up on this job after a few months.
- Number of Security Alerts Spiking Up
Another issue at hand, the number of security alerts that need to be looked at is so high that analysts spend most of the time looking into those. While this happens, there are chances that critical data and security issues get overlooked, increasing the chances of threats and attacks.
It is expected that SOC teams should spend more time working on and looking at smaller and bigger security issues.
- Resolving Budget Issues
It is common for every company or business, irrespective of its size and reputation, to try and curb budgets in some way or the other. For a company to decide on increasing its spending, they need to know that there is a clear state of ROI. Can we take a risk with cyber attacks and threats just because we need to reduce spending? No. It is a considerable risk, which might lead to poor consequences. Cyberthreats are increasing over time, and companies must improve efficiency by increasing spending to protect the company from ill motives.
- Cybersecurity Threats Are Faster Than Defenses
The speed of cyber threats has only increased over the years, and they have not stopped still. Every hour thousands of cyber attacks take place, and in comparison to this speed, the defense is very meager.
The members of SOC have to be on the job and monitor everything round the clock to keep up with the pace of cyber criminals. One worthy addition that can be made to SOC to cope with this issue is the inclusion of ‘threat intelligence.’
- Constant Upgradation
The technology will do its job every time there is a threat, but after that threat has been dealt with, the job is not done there. Things must be updated daily, and strategies and protocols must be changed frequently. This might even call for training the staff members again in detail.
- Choosing the Right Technology
Many choices must be made daily, including the type of technology to be used, starting from MDR, EDR, SIEM, etc. Whatever a company settles to invest in, it should ensure that the chosen technology acts as a worthy investment, giving results and yielding benefits.