SprwLabs
Managing Incident Severity in a SOC: Leveraging SOAR for Automation
In a Security Operations Center (SOC), managing incident severity is critical for ensuring the security of an organization’s digital infrastructure. Incident severity directly impacts the prioritization of resources, team actions, and response times. As threats evolve in complexity, SOC teams must have a structured and efficient approach to determine severity and respond appropriately.
Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms can play a transformative role by streamlining incident response workflows, automating repetitive tasks, and providing actionable insights. Let's explore how SOAR platforms can automate key processes to enhance efficiency.
SOAR platforms automate many aspects of incident severity management, from the initial triage to post-incident reporting. Here are some key examples of how SOAR can streamline and enhance SOC operations.
Alert Triage and Enrichment
Manual Process: When an alert is triggered, SOC analysts must gather information from various sources to determine the validity of the alert. They may query logs, threat intelligence feeds, and user activity to assess whether the alert is an indicator of a genuine threat.
SOAR Automation: SOAR platforms can automatically collect and enrich alert data from disparate systems. For instance, when an alert is received, a SOAR platform can query multiple log sources and cross-reference it with threat intelligence. Based on predefined criteria (e.g., if credentials were used on multiple unauthorized devices), the incident can be automatically categorized as "high severity."
Incident Escalation Based on Business Context
Manual Process: SOC analysts must assess whether an alert affects critical systems or users. For example, if a phishing email targets a C-suite executive, it might require an immediate, escalated response.
SOAR Automation: SOAR platforms can automatically correlate alert data with business-critical information. For instance, if an incident affects systems tagged as “critical infrastructure,” the platform can automatically raise the incident’s severity and escalate it to senior analysts or executives.
Running Investigative Queries to Classify Severity
Manual Process: When an alert involving suspicious network activity occurs, analysts typically need to run multiple queries across log sources to determine whether the activity is malicious or benign. This might involve checking firewall logs, endpoint security data, and external IP reputations.
SOAR Automation: SOAR can be programmed to run these investigative queries automatically. For example, the platform can search across firewall logs and SIEMs for the presence of known threat actors. For example, should a known threat actor be found via a logging system query, the incident can be automatically escalated to critical severity, and special notifications and actions can be initiated.
Also consider, insider threats - insider threats can generate very time intensive to investigate by manual processes. A SOAR platform can run the query, analyze behavior, and escalate the incident based on how far from the baseline the behavior is.
Automating Incident Closure
Manual Process: Once an incident is resolved, analysts must manually document the steps taken, including the queries run and the rationale behind categorizing the incident’s severity.
SOAR Automation: SOAR platforms can automatically log all actions taken during the incident response process. This includes the initial severity classification, queries run, escalations made, and remediation steps. Analysts can focus on reviewing and fine-tuning the report, ensuring the post-incident notes are accurate and comprehensive.
Incident Tracking with Detailed Notes
Manual Process: Every action an analyst takes throughout the course of an investigation will require time to input the action in a system of record. Each analyst may do this in a different way, such as uploading the data via spreadsheet file, comma separated file, or raw clipboard paste into the system of record.
SOAR Automation: All steps the SOAR platform takes can be automatically added to the system of record as detailed, uniform notes. For example, when a process calls for investigating a user's login information from SSO platforms, a query can be automatically run and documented in a uniform format.
This is also excellent for situations handling hundreds of repetitive actions that need to be documented. The SOAR platform can run and document the long and tedious processes, leaving analysts free to address more pressing incidents.
Playbook-Driven Response Actions
Manual Process: When a high-severity incident occurs, analysts often need to follow established procedures. For example, if a critical vulnerability is detected on a public-facing server, steps must be taken to patch the vulnerability and ensure there is no ongoing exploitation.
SOAR Automation: SOAR platforms can automatically trigger playbooks based on the severity of the incident. If a server vulnerability is detected and categorized as critical, the SOAR platform can automatically deploy a patch or isolate the affected server, alert the necessary stakeholders, and create a follow-up task to validate the remediation. All of this happens with minimal human intervention, ensuring faster resolution times.
Managing incident severity within a SOC requires a balance of well-defined frameworks, contextual analysis, and efficient response processes. SOAR platforms can automate many of the manual tasks associated with incident severity management, reducing response times, improving consistency, and allowing SOC analysts to focus on higher-level decision-making.