Should You Be Automating

1
Should You Be Automating?
2
Introduction

• What drives security operations teams to begin
  the journey to security automation differs for
  each SOC, whether its a staffing shortage or the
  inefficiency that results from manual processes.
• Check out our list of 6 true or false statements
  below, all of which are common triggers for
  implementing a security automation solution. If
  you answer true to any of the items below, now
  may just be the time to start automating.

3
Experienced a Significant Breach

• Have you suffered a significant cybersecurity
  breach recently? It happens. In fact, it happened
  more than 1,500 times in 2017 in the U.S. alone.
  But continuing to do the same things you have
  always done even after a significant breach is
  far too common. Understanding why a breach
  happened is part of the investigative process and
  is vital to guarding your organization against
  similar incidents in the future. Security
  automation platforms help speed up the
  investigation process and can help you automate
  responses to known threats before they can cause
  damage to your organization.

4
Incident Response Time is Slipping

• Have your incident response time numbers been
  slipping? As cybersecurity teams deal with an
  increasing number of systems, networks, and
  threats, they naturally find it more difficult to
  deal with these issues in the same amount of time
  as they once did. Security automation can help
  teams identify the most pressing issues,
  adequately prioritize responses and make it easy
  for new employees to get up to speed quickly.

5
Threats Slip Through the Cracks

• Even if a threat did not end up causing
  significant damage, having threats slip through
  unaddressed can be a sign of issues in your
  processes. Typically, this is a byproduct of
  having more alerts triggered than can be
  reasonably addressed in a timely manner. Security
  automation tools can help by automating the
  response to certain alerts so analysts are free
  to spend time on the alerts that truly need their
  attention. As a bonus, some security automation
  platforms also have security orchestration
  capabilities that add even more efficiency by
  enabling the management of a variety of security
  tools.

6
Reduce Your Security Budget

• Organizations still running their security
  operations exclusively from SIEM are likely
  overspending on manpower. Salaries in the
  cybersecurity industry are expected to increase
  by 7 in 2018. Security automation platforms
  make your existing staff more efficient by
  reducing false positives so security analysts can
  handle the most pressing issues. An investment in
  security automation can save your business
  significant money for years to come by maximizing
  manpower and the investment youve made in your
  security tools.

7
SOC Requires Better Organization

• Despite significant investments in technology,
  SOCs are notorious for relying on manual
  processes when it comes to incident investigation
  and response. This often leaves security analysts
  to their own devices as they work to triage and
  resolve security events. Security automation
  necessitates getting your processes in order in
  order to take full advantage of its benefits. In
  that light, security automation tools can be the
  push that teams need to get their day-to-day
  processes in order so they are predictable and
  repeatable.

8
Culture within Your SOC Team

• Do you find that your security team culture is
  suffering? Is bickering between team members and
  management becoming more commonplace? In most
  organizations, the number of systems and
  platforms that a cybersecurity team must protect
  continues to grow. An investment in better
  monitoring and investigation tools not only helps
  to make your team more effective, it reduces
  their workload and improves SOC team culture
  simultaneously.

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Conclusion

• So, how did you do? Answering true to two or
  more of the items above means now is the time to
  start investigating how you can start reaping the
  benefits of security automation to improve the
  overall efficiency, efficacy, and culture of your
  security operations.