Outsourcing or internalization of the SOC, how to choose ?

Choosing between an internal or external security operations center (SOC) affects both the level of IT security of the organization and the cost of this service. Therefore, it is essential to carefully study all the ins and outs of your company before opting for outsourcing or insourcing your SOC.

Potentially formidable and unpredictable, cyber attacks threaten the integrity of the information system of companies. The danger remains permanent with the permanent and increasing flows of digital data. Almost all entities are victims of hacking but not all are properly prepared to face it. By diversifying their phishing and ransomware attacks, data traffickers are becoming very creative to achieve their goals.

In SMEs as well as in large groups, the existence of an SOC becomes vital to fight against these malicious acts. Which option is more effective and profitable, in-house or outsourced ?

Why a security operations center ?

Ensuring at the same time the administration, the supervision and the control of the information system, the SOC meets a plethora of objectives. It brings together IT resources and human skills to ensure better management of cybersecurity incidents. Its preventive actions allow to alert and prevent intrusion attempts in an information system.

In the event of incidents, the SOC enables rapid detection and corrective action. Its existence guarantees an ultra-secure environment with permanent monitoring and control of the system. The IT team continuously monitors all the entry points to the system: networks, servers, applications and even websites.

External or internal SOC: what is the best solution ?

The company has the choice of entrusting the administration and security of its IT system to an internal or external team. An internal administration certainly guarantees a strong reactivity of the IT team in front of the incidents as well as a fast diffusion of the information. Nevertheless, the internalization of the SOC involves an enormous initial investment cost.

The need to upgrade the skills of operators and to keep a constant watch on technological developments requires a significant budget. Moreover, the internal management of the SOC can be a source of conflicts of interest and interfere with internal relations. The outsourcing of the SOC makes it possible to mitigate these major disadvantages and to offer more flexibility.

SOC outsourcing: full-scale benefits

The security operations center can be managed by an IT company specialized in outsourcing. The importance of its material logistics and its organization guarantees an optimal level of control of your information system. In addition to its operational reactivity and its permanent availability 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year, the external SOC has several advantages.

Better anticipation of attacks

Data traffickers are constantly updating their techniques to infiltrate your information system. To better circumvent their attacks, the implementation of Threat Intelligence is an essential basis for your cyber defense.

Threat Intelligence is an essential component of an external SOC, enabling the anticipation of general and targeted risks to the IS. Benefiting from the permanent learning resulting from its missions with numerous customers, it gathers a large quantity of knowledge and feedbacks allowing to feed the machine learning of the control tools, such as Cloudflare, and increase the expertise of the teams.

Thanks to this information watch, the external SOC can keep you informed of IoC compromise risks. In parallel, the external SOC can collaborate with the IT department to work on various areas of improvement :

• the reinforcement of attack detection and surveillance systems
• revision of the rules of Cloud governance best practices and safety
• reinforcement of backup equipment
• consolidation of IS protection tools and software

A minimum cost and a better return on investment

The key to the external SOC lies in the pooling of resources. The client company will have no initial investment except for the payment of IT services. The service provider employs qualified and experienced profiles, who will also be the privileged interlocutors of the company. The company will not have to recruit new employees when it chooses to outsource its SOC.

Compared to the financial costs that this could generate, the choice of an external SOC seems legitimate in terms of ROI. With a minimal operational cost, the external SOC allows the company to avoid heavy financial losses if the system were to be corrupted. Better equipped than an in-house team, the outsourced SOC can ensure a more in-depth and sharp monitoring of activities by :

• anticipation of phishing and ransomware campaigns
• control of the different layers of the web from the deep web to the dark web through social networks
• analysis of the volume of data accessible via the Internet
• the collection and correction of bad practices of employees in terms of confidentiality management.

A flexible and scalable operations center

Thanks to its scalability, a SOC can be scaled quickly to respond to changes in traffic, in real time. The amount of resources can be adjusted according to the workload and the amount of traffic to be processed. Similarly, a scalable environment can be scaled up to cope with increased workloads. The active adjustment of power promotes rapid execution of tasks to avoid system bugs.

There is no doubt that a flexible and scalable external operations center guarantees your company a great agility. The importance of this flexibility is particularly felt in the context of large-scale digital projects where bugs and system interruptions can alter the user experience. Or during particularly dynamic periods such as sales and the end of year holidays, which implies prepare websites and web applications to receive a lot of traffic and therefore attacks. By using VMs, the external SOC can optimally distribute and manage data traffic.

A SOC team focused on your company’s business

The search for a specialist with the specific skills for certain business environments can be laborious. In specific systems such as ICS (Industrial Control Systems), it is rare to find a profile with a perfect command of the industrial control system. An external SOC oriented to your company’s business guarantees the availability of qualified human resources and skills.

Undoubtedly, operating on infrastructures vital to the company requires a mastery of the protocols and software dedicated to this industrial environment. The external SOC should also be used to help popularize technical processes that are beyond the skills of the internal organization. This transfer of know-how contributes to the operational efficiency and performance of the company.

Optimize control of your IT system with an external SOC

A lack of vigilance on the security of your information system can jeopardize the sustainability of your business. Cybercrime no longer spares any sector of activity. Players specialized in technology, industry, telecommunications, finance and energy are the first targets of hackers.

Data traffickers attack the vulnerable points of your IS and can even launch dreaded ransomware to hold your data hostage and extort money from you. An external SOC is able to observe what is beyond the reach of your organization. Secure your business and protect your assets by outsourcing your SOC.

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