What is SOAR?

SOAR refers to the Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response.

The SOAR platform is the convergence of security orchestration and automation, security incident response platforms (SIRP), and threat intelligence platforms (TIP).

Cybersecurity is constantly evolving and changing, with the rapid influx of the latest technologies, hacking methodologies, and advanced software. Cyberattacks have become increasingly more evasive and damaging and businesses need to meet such increasingly challenging situations with precision and speed.

If you are looking for a versatile and data driven data-driven approach for day-to-day threat monitoring and incident response, then, in that case, you need to invest in well-established SOAR security vendors like Securaa for effective security management.

What is security orchestration?

Security orchestration connects and integrates disparate internal and external tools through built-in or custom integrations and application programming interfaces (APIs). These may include intrusion detection and prevention, vulnerability scanners, firewalls, endpoint protection products, etc.

What is security automation?

The security orchestration feeds the data and alerts to security automation which analyzes the data and creates repeated, automated processes to replace manual processes.

To further break it down, tasks that previously required human intervention such as vulnerability scanning or log analysis, can be standardized and automatically executed by SOAR platforms.

Through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, SOAR automation can make recommendations and automate future responses.

What is security response?

Security response offers a consolidated view to the analysts responsible for the planning, managing, monitoring, and reporting of actions that were carried out once the threat is detected. This function is also responsible for post-incident response activities, such as case management, reporting, and threat intelligence sharing.

What is the purpose of a SOAR platform?

Security operations can often be a challenging profession because speed and efficiency are vital to mitigate the organization’s risks. However, the more significant challenge is ensuring all systems work in harmony to identify and solve the risk.

Analysts are often overwhelmed by the number of alerts, especially from contrasting systems. To be able to collate the data, generate analysis and coordinate an appropriate response for remedial, in a short period of time can be a Herculean task.

Through SOAR security vendors, and by implementing the SOAR tool can alleviate all of these challenges, achieve your security goals, and save time. A standardized process for data collection, supplemented by AI and ML, helps reduce alert fatigue while allowing for human decision-making in critical situations.

Organizations need to move beyond the complex processes and instead focus on the solution that empowers them to improve cyber security posture through the right technology.

What are the benefits of using the SOAR tool?

Quick Turnaround time

The security orchestration system collects multiple related alerts with no human intervention whenever possible. It has allowed for automation to the decision-making process, resulting in a quick turnaround time for the alert handling process.

It can ingest threat intelligence and correlate it with events in real-time through automatic processes. This reduces the analysts’ alert fatigue and immediately provides actionable information for incident response teams.

Streamlined Operations

Low-priority security alerts and incidents are handled through automated playbooks. This means mundane, repetitive tasks and the overall processes are collected together in one guide. This removes the guesswork, limiting cyberattack dwell time and overall impact on the business.

Reduced cyberattack impact

The impact of the cyberattack is measured through the Meantime to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR). SOAR minimizes both MTTD and MTTR and reduces the overall impact on the business.

The incident response teams can include internal and external stakeholders as per the organization’s SOP for reliable information and actionable strategies.

Easy technology & tools integration

The SOAR tool can correlate alerts from a wide variety of products and technologies like cloud security, SIEM, forensics, malware analysis, etc.

The orchestration could be facilitated with a library of plug-ins and pre-built workflows for common use cases. Additional customizations can be built as per the team and organization.

Automated reporting & metrics capabilities

The SOAR security tool allows for automated reporting in just one click. It is fitted with reporting templates and can generate custom reports as per the requirements. This reduces the administration work and correct reports can be generated with ease.

Lowered costs

By hiring a SOAR security vendor, an organization creates significant savings. For example, it could save up to 90% on reporting, 60% on analyst training, etc. This enables the company to invest the time and resources saved on other tasks or revenue-generating purposes.

The way forward

Today, your organization needs to identify security threats, automate response workflows​ and save time for high-priority triage tasks to meet the ever-changing needs of cybersecurity. All of this and more can be achieved with your go-to partner, Securaa for easy security orchestration, automation and response solutions.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

  1. What is the full form for SOAR?

Ans. The full form for SOAR is Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response.

  1. SIEM vs SOAR, which is better?

Ans.  No, SIEM and SOAR are different from each other although they are often used interchangeably. While SIEM aggregates and correlates data from multiple security systems, SOAR acts as the automated response engine to those alerts.

  1. What is an incident response plan?

Ans. An incident response plan comprises of six main steps: Preparation, Identification, Containment, Eradication, Recovery and Lessons Learned. You could read more about it here.

  1. Who is the CISO?

Ans. CISO refers to the Chief Information Security Officer. He/she works to safeguard the system from external threats by creating policies and a security plan to face challenges in cybersecurity.

  1. Give some examples of cyber threat intelligence tools.

Ans. Some examples of cyber threat intelligence tools include Open Source Threat IntelligenceTools (OSINT), Cyber Tfast-growing threat Intelligence Tools, and CyberThreat Intelligence Platforms.