According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) 2022 Internet Crime Report, 422 million individuals were impacted by cybercrimes in 2022 with an associated cost of $6 trillion. Anticipated increases for 2023 are estimated to be $8 trillion, and with recent cyber breaches and ransomware situations at two major Las Vegas hotel properties, the cost impact may be higher.   
 
It’s clear cybersecurity threats continue to rise with even the most seemingly secure networks being successfully compromised. Attacks can take many forms, such as malware, phishing, ransomware and network intrusions, among many others. To combat these attacks, most organizations leverage a SIEM solution. 

Understanding a SIEM

Security information and event management (SIEM) is an essential security system put in place to monitor threat activities happening within an IT infrastructure. When specific triggers are met due to the rules an organization has in place, a SIEM creates an alert (i.e., an unapproved user accessing software or data without permission).  

While having a SIEM in place is important, the number of alarms triggered in any one day can be overwhelming and not realistic for a security operations center (SOC) team to manage. A recent survey of identity and access management (IAM) professionals highlighted in Forbes, indicated that 61 percent of IT leaders average 1000+ alarms per day with many requiring manual remediation. Alarm fatigue is a real issue, and with the severe staffing shortages in cybersecurity, there can be significant delays in response times to real-time threats. 

Solving for Cyber Alert Fatigue and Staffing Shortages with Security Automation

So how do security leaders optimize their incident response times with the overwhelming number of alerts coming in and minimize the risk of a breach or stolen data? By leveraging standardized and automated responses to threats using a security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) platform. Key cybersecurity technologies (including your SIEM solution) are integrated into a SOAR platform to review, prioritize and triage alerts. Then based on the type of alert, a workflow is initiated for an automatic incident response. This enables a faster and more efficient response to threats and requires limited to no human interaction. In addition, when using a SOAR platform, data from multiple security tools can be integrated to provide a centralized view of all threats in a single location. This supports quicker visualization of an organization’s threats and response.

SIEM and SOAR – Mitigating SIEM Alerts Faster

To help understand how the two technologies work together to monitor and manage viable threats, imagine the SIEM reviewing a large volume of data and identifying a threat. An alert triggers, but in most cases, no mitigation will occur until a human reviews the information and responds. And even then, the response will be done manually by logging into numerous systems to correlate and remediate the issue. However, when integrated with a SOAR platform, the threat can be analyzed and data correlated in a single interface, and then an automated response will be carried out using pre-defined automation playbooks, with limited to no manual human interaction.

Walk Before You SOAR

Not sure what features you require or don’t have the expertise or staff to implement? No worries—Phoenix Cyber can walk you through the process. Our experienced consultants can evaluate your unique needs, provide input on the best solution based on the analysis, and help design, install and maintain your security platforms. We have decades of experience helping SOCs better defend their environments from cyber threats and attacks. 

Concerned about the investment cost of SOAR? With an average of 400 new cyber-attacks occurring each day and a ransomware attack happening every 14-seconds—can you afford not to have one?