External challenges and internal inefficiencies are some of the main reasons why more organisations require an integrated approach to security operations. Security operations centres need to detect and respond to cyberthreats promptly and effectively, providing a secure setting in which business activities can run smoothly.
When it comes to leveraging these services, however, an increasing skill shortage is drastically affecting the methods through which security operations centres function. In addition to this, disconnected security tools are making it harder for companies to get a complete picture of the security posture of their organisation.
Given how crucial security operations centres are to the cybersecurity space, let's take a look at some of the biggest contemporary challenges for these services.
Internal inefficiencies undermine security operations centres
It’s no secret that security teams perceive the operations landscape as more complex than it has been at any time in the past. This could be due to various reasons.
To begin with, constant attacks are making it harder to monitor security operations across an entire enterprise.
Beyond that, however, the complexities inherent to the expansion of the enterprise in terms of digital transformation, cloud migration, and mobility initiatives have resulted in data being scattered across multiple systems.
Internal inefficiencies of this nature are being recognised as the primary reasoning behind lapses in security implementation. This can undermine the work of security operations centres, preventing companies from enjoying a true bird’s eye view of their security.
The big data problem of security analytics
Security data management has to take on a more strategic approach due to the growing volume of data within organisations. Many security operation centres agree that they are collecting more security data now than they have done in the past.
Now, sophisticated tools and systems are necessary to manage and make the most of this security data. There is so much data at hand that organisations have to spend half their time preparing data for analysis.
Moving forward, organisations have to be smarter about how they handle and collect data. To avoid redundancy, they have to be clear about what is necessary for threat detection and security investigations.
To tackle the problem that big data presents, organisations will have to decide on what data has to be stored online and how much real-time processing is required. Details of historical data collected and stored should be done so for threat investigation.
New requirements imposed on SOC by cloud migration
With the increase in cloud-based migration, there has been an increased risk of attack, which has necessitated new skill requirements for security operations centres.
Some organisations are already running on-premise systems to monitor and analyse workloads on the cloud. This implementation helps with the detection of cyber threats and improves the security compliance processes within your organisation.
Compared to the past, more and more organisations are opting to move their security analytics and operations to the cloud.
The challenge of threat hunting by machine learning
With big data in the picture, machine learning tools are becoming the key to effective threat detection and response. Security tools are designed to help organisations spot malicious activity before they take a toll on the operations of the organisation.
Though there is an influx of interest, organisations are practising caution in implementing machine-learning-based threat-hunting techniques. Instead of replacing defence systems, organisations are relying on machine learning to bolster existing defence systems.
This is because, though effective, these systems are complicated and machine learning still has errors within, which makes the overall process of security operations management harder for some. As a standalone programme, machine-learning-based security management is too intricate for many, making it a supplementary choice as opposed to a standalone solution.
Overcoming challenges for next-gen security operations centres
Given the challenges posed by big data and the volumes of data that require more secure processing, security operations centres have to be constantly evolving to meet and overcome the challenges posed by the growing complexity of the business and cybersecurity environments.
For expert cybersecurity support, our team at Triskele Labs can meet your SOC needs. Our security operations centre solutions help you achieve vulnerability management and provide cutting-edge security assessment support. Get in touch with us to find out more.
