Effective Security Operations Center (SOC) management is more complex than ever. Analysts are plagued by alert fatigue, threats are growing more frequent and sophisticated, and enterprise environments are becoming increasingly complex. However, these challenges are not insurmountable: intelligent use of the right security tools can significantly reduce the burden on SOC teams. Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) is one such tool.

What is SOAR?

At root, SOAR solutions collect data and respond to security events without human intervention. As the name suggests, they have three key capabilities: orchestration, automation, and response. Before we cover how best to integrate SOAR into your existing security program, it’s crucial to understand these terms.

Orchestration

Security orchestration involves coordinating and integrating multiple security tools and technologies. Just as a musical orchestra must work harmoniously, so does a security stack. SOAR solutions pull data from an organization’s many security tools – including everything from firewalls to threat intelligence platforms – and display this information on a centralized interface, ensuring security teams have a comprehensive view of their security environment and, ultimately, better protect their organization.

Automation

It’s a hot topic at the moment—and one you are probably already familiar with. Fundamentally, security automation refers to the pre-programmed execution of security actions. SOAR solutions create and execute processes to replace manual actions based on the data collected during security orchestration. For example, the SOAR tool takes over tasks usually performed by security analysts—such as vulnerability scanning or log analysis.

Playbooks are critical to the automation process. They contain predefined workflows that the SOAR solution executes in response to specific incidents. For example, suppose the solution determines during the orchestration phase that someone has gained unauthorized access to the network. In that case, it will trigger response actions that isolate, quarantine, and elevate the threat.

Response

SOAR’s response capabilities are an amalgamation of its orchestration and automation capabilities. Orchestration gives security teams a single view of the security environment, while automation executes immediate response actions. The solution provides data for further investigation in the aftermath of an incident.

How to Integrate Your SOAR Solution

Now that we understand how a SOAR solution works, we can explore how best to integrate it with your existing security tools. However, it’s crucial to remember that SOAR integration is a complicated process that will take months to complete. This blog is not a comprehensive guide to SOAR integration – think of it as a jumping-off point to inform the remainder of your integration journey.

Assess and Map Your Current Security Infrastructure

First, you must inventory all your existing security tools – and that means all of them. Your inventory should include information on your tools’ functionalities, data flows, and integration capabilities. It’s also worth prioritizing tools for integration, focusing on those most critical for incident detection and response.

Select the Right SOAR Platform

Once you have inventoried your tools, you can start thinking about what SOAR platform is best for you. You must ensure the SOAR you choose supports integrations with your existing tools, either natively or via APIs, allows you to customize workflows, playbooks, and integrations, and can scale with your business. Talk with multiple SOAR providers and ask these questions during the buying process.

Plan and Prioritize Integration

You will have done some of this in the inventory stage, but planning and prioritizing your integration process is now essential. Identify the use cases – such as incident response and threat hunting – where SOAR will help most. Similarly, you must set clear objectives for your SOAR integration – such as reducing response times – and prioritize the integrations that will best help you achieve them.

Implement and Configure Integrations

We’re finally past the planning stage and into the actual integration. During this process, you must use APIs or custom connectors to link your security tools with the SOAR platform – this will ensure proper security orchestration. Then, you must develop playbooks that define automated response actions for specific incidents. Most importantly, test your integrations before implementation to ensure everything functions as it should.

Monitor, Optimize, and Maintain

At this stage, your SOAR will be set up and ready to go. But your work isn’t over: continuous improvement is crucial to the success of a SOAR solution. You must track metrics like mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR) to evaluate the effectiveness of your SOAR integration. You must also regularly update and refine playbooks based on new threats, lessons learned from incidents, and changes in your security environment to ensure your solution works as it should.

Conclusion

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response are vital parts of any effective SOC. They significantly reduce alert fatigue among SOC analysts, streamline work processes, offer a comprehensive view of security environments, and ultimately improve security. However, integrating SOAR with existing security systems is no easy task; it requires a thoughtful approach. Use the best practices above to inform your integration process and work with your SOAR provider for successful integration.