Cybersecurity has never been more important.
Whether it is after a breach or as a proactive measure, many businesses are looking to take a comprehensive approach to their IT environment’s security.
Endpoint protection is helpful. However, it doesn’t catch everything, and each solution is working individually.
If you’re looking for another way to strengthen your overall security posture and have your endpoint protections work together, consider a managed security operations center (SOC).
Security solutions, such as firewalls, antivirus, anti–spam, DNS filters, provide lots of data, but without someone to analyze that data, much of the value of that information is lost.
Managed SOC services collect this data, analyze it, provide alerts, and respond to any discovered threats. They’re an important piece of your cybersecurity posture.
Here at The KR Group, our managed SOC services help our customers take a more comprehensive approach to protect their most valuable digital assets.
In general, our customers find managed SOC services extremely beneficial when it comes to analyzing and overall protecting your IT environment.
However, this service does have a few pitfalls, including:
- Required configuration
- Frequent alerting
- Initial false positives
- Budget-friendliness
- Required solid incident response plan
The good news is all of these problems have an explanation or solution, and shouldn’t impede your service.
Problem #1: You need to set aside time to configure managed SOC services correctly.
Managed SOC services provide powerful insight that ultimately protects your IT environment. However, this is only possible after you configured these services correctly, and this process takes time.
It can be cumbersome to configure all your devices that log network data to send that to data to the sensor.
The good news is once you take the time to complete this configuration, you’ll receive all of the insight managed SOC services are designed to provide.
Problem #2: Alerting is enabled 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
In general, continual reporting is a good thing. An attack isn’t restricted to an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule. By having the ability to alert you at any time, it means someone will be notified of any event as soon as your managed SOC detects it.
However, the problem with this feature is it means whoever is set up to receive notifications could be woken up overnight.
If this problem applies to you, there are a couple of solutions.
First, consider who is receiving the messages. Being alerted to overnight emergencies is just part of the nature of IT support, but if this is a problem for a specific user, you can always reconfigure the lists of who receives alerts within your business.
If receiving an overnight alert is only an occasional inconvenience, you can always temporarily turn off alerts on your device. Just remember to turn them back on.
Most importantly, remember that even if alerts in the middle of the night are inconvenient, they’re designed to help prevent an attack.
Problem #3: False positives can occur during initial deployment.
Managed SOC services use SIEM (security information and event management) software to learn about your environment. By cataloging all your network data, your SIEM software checks for anomalous activity that may indicate a security threat.
It takes a while for SIEM software to catch on, though. In the first couple of weeks of using managed SOC services, you are likely to receive false positives as the SIEM software adjusts to your network.
When it comes to security alerts, it’s better to receive false positives than false negatives. Until your managed SOC learns more about your network habits, it will be extra cautious and flag anything it thinks could possibly be malicious.
The best solution to this problem is to have patience. Rest assured the SIEM component of managed SOC is working and the false positives will diminish with time.
Problem #4: Not every business’s budget will accommodate managed SOC services
As with other security services, managed SOC costs money, and you have to decide if it fits into your IT budget.
Some pricing issues you should know about are:
1. Managed SOC services are priced for a minimum number of users.
At The KR Group, our managed SOC services start with a minimum of 30 users.
If you have fewer than 30 users, you aren’t required to fill each seat. However, you’ll pay for them regardless if they’re filled or not.
For businesses just below the minimum user count, this gives you some padding to allow your business to grow.
If you’re a very small business, though, it may not make sense to pay for several times the number of users they have.
2. Managed SOC services require additional infrastructure.
Along with the recurring subscription fees for managed SOC services, you’ll need to purchase a sensor for the SIEM to report back to the provider. You can either purchase your own hardware sensor that integrates with your managed SOC services, or you can rent one from the provider.
The sensor does require two dedicated network adaptors. One is for monitoring, and the other is for management.
If you don’t have this available already, you will need to add adaptors for the sensor to work optimally. It is also possible you will need downtime to implement new infrastructure.
When budgeting for managed SOC services, these are all things you need to keep in mind. Once you purchase and integrate them, managed SOC services can start monitoring your
However, the setup and subscription for managed SOC services don’t fall within every business’s IT budget.
For both budget problems, we urge you to remember managed SOC services are far more cost-effective than hiring a dedicated security engineer to review network data logs.
Problem #5: You need an incident response plan in place before using managed SOC services.
If you don’t have a cybersecurity response plan in place – and a solid one at that — your managed SOC provider will require you to create and implement one before services start.
From a time perspective, some customers might initially view this as a problem because it can add a small delay to managed SOC deployment.
However, it serves an important purpose and is something you need to accomplish before starting managed SOC services.
Managed SOC services include remediation recommendations. Along with notifications of anomalous activity, your managed SOC provider offers sound remediation recommendations to help you resolve the underlying issue.
Implementing incident response plans ensures you have the proper procedures in place to work with your managed SOC and resolve issues.
As a benefit, having this in place means you’ll reduce the amount of time it takes for your business to respond to future threats.
Are managed SOC services right for you?
If you’re looking for cybersecurity protection beyond the separate logs, managed SOC services are your answer.
There are a few things to consider before your managed SOC provider implements their tools into your network.
For example, before your managed SOC can start working monitoring and managing your IT environment, you’ll need to set aside time to configure the new service correctly.
You should also keep in mind that false positives may occur during the first few weeks and you may receive an alert at any time during the day.
However, if there is room in your budget, managed SOC services will become a powerful component of your security strategy.
If you’re still unsure if managed SOC services can help your business, take our quiz to see if it’s a good fit for your business.
