Proposal paper on Security Operation Center

                In these modern days, the technology has been growing rapidly. This definitely influences the business for all stages of companies. The companies with small, medium and big sizes should be able to protect the confidential information about their employees, clients, business partners, internal business activities, and other things that included in daily business transactions of the companies (Muniz, McIntyre, & AlFardan, 2015). It means that security operations are crucial for any organization, because technology has taken its valid space in every organization, so when it comes to dealing with that technology and protecting the data of whole organization. This purpose can be served by a dedicated and well-designed Security Operation Center, which has all the elements to perform required security functions. So, this proposal is going to describe a brief plan regarding a Security Operation Center, which is proposed to be established in a renowned university of the city. It is important to clarify that proposal will not be considered as any legal document or offer; rather it is just a proposal, which can be considered for any future course of action regarding building the Security Operation Center.

Security Breach

        It is a fact that along with the growing technology, there is also an appearance of cyber criminals and also hacking software. The opportunities for the companies to experience a security breach have widely opened. In fact, a current business study in the United States found out that one of four companies would get the attack on their sensitive data once in a year. For this reason, all companies must able to implement the proper security system to secure their confidential data. The other important thing to keep in mind regarding security breaches is that they are not going to slow down; rather their frequency and numbers can increase with the passage of time. The vulnerability of information and data will always be there, and these vulnerable systems will continue to face severe threats from cyber criminals. The security threats can be severe in so many ways, so companies cannot take it lightly at all. They need to take serious measures to protect data and security breach, otherwise consequences can be extremely damaging.

What is a Security Operation Center?

        One of the most appropriate solutions to manage the security breach within companies is a Security Operation Center or SOC. Security Operation Center is basically a facility that contains of an in-house IT security team who has a key role in monitoring and continuously evaluating the security feature of companies on a regular basis. This security team evaluates the IT system and also detects the faults, errors, or threats by a set of processes along with the technology resolutions. A Security Operation Center has the ability to identify a probable attack by figuring the instruments. It is vital to understand that SOC comes with a centralized function, which keeps an eye on the whole organizations. The systems, people, processes and data are closely monitored on daily basis so that any potential or existing threat can be identified, analyzed and then responded accordingly. The above mentioned measures cannot be taken, if an organization does not have a particular central Security Operation Center. It shows that Security Operation Center is indispensable for modern organizations in so many ways, and no one can deny the importance of these centers (McAfee, LLC, 2019)

How Security Operation Center Works

          Slightly than being concentrated on enhancing the security tactic, shaping the architecture of security, or applying the defensive measures, a Security Operation Center team is in charge for the continuing, operational element of information security within a company. The Security Operation Center team mostly contains security analysts who collaborate and work together to identify, analyze, give the respond, report, and also prevent the incidents of cyber security. In addition to this, some extra abilities of Security Operation Center could include progressive cryptanalysis, forensic analysis, as well as malware opposite the engineering to investigate the incidents (Jarpey & McCoy, 2017).

            It is critical for an organization to understand that when they are looking to establish a Security Operation Center, they must have a clear strategy and planning in mind that what is the objective of building this SOC, and how it will incorporate specific business goals to keep things in the right direction. Once the strategy is properly derived after analyzing things, then next step is to build infrastructure for the SOC. There are various elements and systems are needed in this infrastructure such as event management & risk management system, security information system, breach detection system as well as different firewalls. The Security Operation System should have proper system, equipment and technology so that infrastructure can be used effectively, and things are done as per the driven strategy. If things will be done properly with proper planning, then SOC can be instrumental in keeping organizations safe from various range of threats on daily basis, where cyber criminals and hackers are coming up with new techniques to threat and attack data (Lord, 2019)

Figure 1: Example of a Threat Management Process

Source: https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/security-awareness/operations/what-is-soc.html

            The above-mentioned threat management process is an example to show that how threats should be dealt in a SOC. There are five basic and most important elements of this process, whereas every other process comes under these five elements. These five primary elements to be followed step by step, like first step is Discovery of a Threat. The next step is Preliminary Investigation, which leads to third step of Triage. The fourth step is extended investigation of the threat, and last step is Contain/Response, which means that how threat will be contained as well as responded accordingly. It means that SOC team will not reach at the conclusion and effectively respond to threat without following these particular steps, because gap in these steps will lead to a point, where an effective action and strategy cannot be achieved.

The Importance of Security Operation Center

            Many IT leaders have been starting to create essential decisions on making protection for their IT systems. In fact, these leaders have been focusing on the impact on human rather than focusing the impact on technology, with a purpose to analyze and reduce the threats as well. Many members of the IT team constantly monitor and do a proper analysis of the identified and current threats in order to figure out the emerging threats. The organizations must realize the fact that things cannot be done properly, if their importance and benefits are not kept in mind. So, it is crucial to analyze the importance of Security Operation Center to know that how critical it can be for an organization in terms of its security. In simple words, a Security Operation Center is a place to excuse for failover and backup, where the entire security data of a company is gathered, organized, saved, investigated, and then conduct the required responds. So, a Security Operation Center is basically a team of experts that located with a purpose to keep all the sensitive information in a company to be safe and secured.

        A Security Operation Center gathers the entire information within a company and associates with the information as of some external sources such as incidents documents, news feeds, threat files, and also the vulnerability signals, which deliver the visions into weaknesses and supports the company to conduct its actions in fighting various cyber threats. A Security Operation Center team will be ahead of potential incidents by nourishing threat intelligence information into devices to maintain and update the processes, with a purpose to separate the actual threats from the non-threat’s incidents. The expert, Security Operation Center team, will use the security mechanization so that the company will be able to develop its systematic power to raise the security procedures and protect the security breaches along with the cyber-attacks as well. The above mentioned points are good enough to depict the real importance of SOC that how it can be useful for modern organizations, and it can be said that if organizations will not develop SOC with relevant elements, then it will become hard for them to deal with severe future cyber security threats (Carfagno, 2018)

The Roles of a Security Operation Center Team

        The roles performed by SOC teams are vital in so many ways, and if they do not understand these roles, then purpose of building SOC cannot be served. Some teams of a Security Operation Center will have following leading roles are:

·         Information Security Officer

·         Security Manager

·         Security Analyst

The Benefits of a Security Operation Center

There are many benefits that could be achieved with using a Security Operation Center to be included in the cyber-security strategy(Nathans, 2014). Below are some of those benefits:

·         Integrated Knowledge

A Security Operation Center team consists of cyber security specialists to make a total summary of the whole network and possible vulnerabilities. This Security Operation Center team is also could share and save the relevant data centrally to the similar knowledge. Thus, the team of Security Operation Center is considered as an equipped team to detect and over calm the threats.

·         Control the cost

A Security Operation Center comes as cost-effective in general than other strategies to handle cyber security. With located a team in one place, the company only needs to cope with one site cost.

·         Gives the reports of threats

A Security Operation Center will give the reports of threats at one location and make it quicker for the identification process of a threat.

·         Enhanced Teamwork

A Security Operation Center will able to create better teamwork and collaboration among the entire cyber security team members.

·         Skilled Proficiency

Until now, there is still a lack of skilled cyber security experts. Therefore, a Security Operation Center offers an avenue for the company to locate and involve its services with support from skilled proficiency.

·         Monitor the Threats

A Security Operation Center team usually has access to the latest threats of a company. For this reason, this team will able to monitor the threats and deal with them before they appear in the company.

Conclusion on Security Operation Center

            In these modern days, it is quite essential for every company to make sure that their IT structure is well secure due to it grips on high value information, and it is also considered as a fundamental fragment of the company itself. A Security Operation Center services offer accurate visions into a company security posture and then give the recommendation for the fixes and modifications to assure the health of IT infrastructure. It can be a very expensive affair for the companies if they lose their sensitive data in a cyber-attack, but if you the company has a Security Operation Center services in place, then it will proactively identify the incidents and make sure for the finest safety.

References of Security Operation Center

Carfagno, D. (2018). What Is a Security Operations Center, and Why Is It Important? Retrieved July 10, 2019, from https://www.blackstratus.com/what-is-a-security-operations-center-and-why-is-it-important/

Jarpey, G., & McCoy, S. (2017). Security Operations Center Guidebook: A Practical Guide for a Successful SOC. Elsevier Science.

Lord, N. (2019). What is a Security Operations Center (SOC)? Retrieved July 10, 2019, from https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what-security-operations-center-soc

McAfee, LLC. (2019). What is a Security Operations Center (SOC)? Retrieved July 10, 2019, from https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/security-awareness/operations/what-is-soc.html

Muniz, J., McIntyre, G., & AlFardan, N. (2015). Security Operations Center: Building, Operating, and Maintaining your SOC. Pearson Education.

Nathans, D. (2014). Designing and Building Security Operations Center. Elsevier Science.