Cybersecurity can pose a daunting business challenge for small and midsize enterprises (SMEs). At its most basic level, information security shares the same composition of other critical business processes:

  1. People: Security analysts and incident responders who perform threat prevention, detection and response functions
  2. Process: The operational workflows involved in threat prevention, detection and response
  3. Technology: The security tools needed for log aggregation, correlation and analysis

These people, processes and technologies represent the core components of the security operations center (SOC).

End-to-End Cybersecurity

The purpose of the SOC is to fulfill core cybersecurity functions, including:

  • Real-time threat detection and response
  • 24/7 monitoring and log correlation
  • 360-degree unified visibility
  • Threat hunting and investigation

An organization’s inability to address all of these security pillars risks compromising its capacity to protect itself against cybercrime.

Equipping a SOC

SMEs often struggle to acquire the resources necessary to build, manage and scale a SOC. This is partly because of the scarcity of cybersecurity expertise that has driven up the cost of locating and retaining analyst talent. The dearth of security expertise notwithstanding, a SOC requires a security information and event management (SIEM) system—which is extremely costly and complex in its own right—as well as intrusion detection tools, workflow tools, threat intelligence feeds and more that “feed” the SIEM.

This doesn’t mean that SMEs should give up on obtaining the comprehensive security a SOC can provide; this is one of the core topics for discussion in the “Definitive Guide to SOC-as-a-Service.” Act now so you can become more familiar with how SMEs can leverage this critical security resource to protect themselves against today’s cyberthreats.