Why modernising your SOC is crucial

Introduction

"Can your SOC keep up with today’s cyber threats, or is it silently becoming your biggest vulnerability?"

Security Operations Centres (SOCs) that are not kept up-to-date with evolving technologies, capabilities and people skills aren’t just inefficient – they can be very costly. Research shows that organisations with slower threat detection and response times are considerably more likely to suffer financial and reputational damage from breaches. According to IBM’s 2023 cost of a data breach report, breaches identified in under 200 days cost $3.93 million, while those taking longer can cost $4.95 million. This blog discusses why SOC modernisation is critical for staying ahead of threats.

Traditional SOCs typically face some or all of the following issues that limit their effectiveness – multiple siloed tools, data overload the SOC cannot cope with, lack of skilled security teams, and lack of scalability. Most also operate reactively in reaction to incidents. All of this slows down both threat detection and response, increasing the organisation’s exposure and vulnerability to attacks, and affecting its ability to keep pace with the increasingly complex and sophisticated emerging threats.

Siloed tools – sometimes as many as 50 in an organisation’s security toolkit – that operate independently means systems are fragmented and complex and analysts do not have a comprehensive view of any attack, which leads to inefficiencies and gaps.
Modernising the SOC with platforms like Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) or Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) consolidates tools, providing analysts with a holistic view of security, helping detect complex attack patterns that isolated data might cause them to miss.

SOCs also grapple with data overload as the volume of security alerts from multiple sources grows exponentially. A Ponemon Institute study revealed that SOC teams receive over 11,000 alerts daily; yet 28% of these go unaddressed due to resource constraints. Modern SOCs integrate real-time threat intelligence feeds and use AI to contextualise this data, ensuring data quality and reliability, and technology to analyse the data and focus only on genuine alerts, thus cutting down on the noise and enabling faster and more effective responses.

Most traditional SOCs focus on responding to attacks rather than anticipating them. This approach is costly: IBM estimates that the average time to identify and contain a breach is 287 days, which can significantly increase financial and reputational damage.

Together, these challenges slow down threat detection and response, expose organisations to greater risks, and undermine business resilience in an increasingly complex threat landscape.

The path to SOC modernisation

Modernisation of your SOC isn’t just about adding the latest tools and systems; it’s about creating a mindset of constant learning and improvement so your SOC continues to evolve and stay current, building a strong foundation of cyber-resilience for the organisation.

The key to future-proofing the SOC includes:

• Creating a strong data strategy with standardised data formats and uniform data collection protocols.
• Establishing a unified platform that cohesively integrates data and tools into a single interface, providing a clear, comprehensive view of the organisation's security posture.
• A focus on threat intelligence, automation, and AI, the weapons that enable the SOC to stay ahead of the game.
• Understanding the importance of the human element – and arming teams with the skills, technology and inputs needed to stay current.
• Tracking the right metrics to ensure the SOC’s efficiency, effectiveness, and alignment with business goals, and regularly assessing and updating these metrics so they remain relevant to evolving threats, technologies, and business needs.

Modernising a SOC is an ongoing process, requiring continuous evolution to address emerging threats and technologies while updating human expertise alongside. Partnering with a cybersecurity provider like Tata Communications for this transformation offers significant advantages in terms of specialised knowledge, access to cutting-edge technologies, and scalable resources to ensure the SOC stays ahead of the curve. With their help, organisations can adopt a proactive, intelligence-driven approach, turning the SOC from a reactive cost centre into a strategic asset that drives business resilience, growth, and competitive advantage.

Download this IDC Spotlight to learn how to modernise your SOC and future-proof your organisation.