The Real-World Return on Investment from Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR)

In today’s growing threat landscape, organizations continue to find new ways to enhance their security operations and mitigate cyber threats more effectively. The traditional approach of relying on human resources to detect, investigate, and respond to these threats is no longer sufficient. As a result, organizations are turning to security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) platforms to enhance their incident response capabilities.

In this article, we will explore the real-world return on investment (ROI) from SOAR, highlighting five tangible benefits that organizations of all sizes can achieve by adopting this innovative cybersecurity technology.

But let’s start with a brief definition of SOAR.

SOAR combines security orchestration, automation, and incident response management into a single platform. It integrates with existing security tools, such as security information and event management (SIEM) solutions, endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems, threat intelligence platforms, ticketing systems, identity and access management (IAM) solutions, and vulnerability management systems, among many others, to streamline and automate complex security processes.

Once you have selected a SOAR platform, integrated your security tools with the platform, and implemented your most common and impactful security operations workflows, you’ll begin to see many tangible results, including:

1. Improved Efficiency and Time Savings: One of the most significant benefits of SOAR is its ability to automate repetitive and time-consuming security tasks. By automating routine activities, such as data enrichment, threat prioritization, and incident triage, organizations free up their security analysts to focus on more critical tasks. This improved efficiency results in significant time savings, enabling security personnel to respond to incidents faster, investigate alerts more effectively, and reduce overall incident response and resolution times.
2. Enhanced Incident Response: Traditional incident response suffers from disjointed workflows, lack of coordination, and communication delays. SOAR platforms provide centralized incident management, enabling teams to collaborate seamlessly. By automating incident response playbooks, organizations have consistent and standardized procedures, minimizing the risk of human error and the potential impact of security breaches.
3. Cost Savings: Implementing SOAR can yield substantial cost savings in the long run. By automating labor-intensive tasks, organizations can optimize their security team’s utilization, potentially reducing the need for additional hires. This translates into lower operational costs, as fewer personnel are required to remediate security incidents. Additionally, the reduced dwell time and faster incident response facilitated by SOAR can minimize the financial impact of security breaches, including potential regulatory fines, legal expenses, and reputational damage.
4. Improved Compliance and Risk Management: Organizations face increasing regulatory requirements and reporting obligations. SOAR solutions offer robust capabilities for compliance management, ensuring adherence to industry standards and regulations. By automating compliance workflows, organizations can streamline audits, generate comprehensive reports, and maintain an up-to-date audit trail, simplifying compliance and reducing the associated costs and risks. Read how one Federal government customer increased their efficiency by over 250% by automating privacy law and regulation compliance around personally identifiable information in this case study.
5. Scalability and Adaptability: SOAR platforms are designed to scale alongside an organization’s growth and evolving security needs. As companies expand, the automation capabilities of SOAR allow security teams to handle a higher volume of alerts and incidents without compromising efficiency. And as the threat landscape continues to change, workflows in the SOAR platform can be easily changed to adapt to the ever-evolving types of cyber threats. This adaptability ensures your investment in SOAR remains relevant and effective in the long term.

The real-world ROI from implementing a Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform is undeniable. By improving efficiency, enhancing incident response capabilities, reducing costs, ensuring compliance, and enabling scalability, SOAR helps organizations achieve tangible ROI while strengthening their security posture. As businesses strive to safeguard their digital assets, SOAR becomes an imperative step towards achieving robust security operations and protecting against evolving risks.

To better understand how SOAR can be implemented in your organization and see a real-world use case with detailed metrics that one of our customers realized after implementing SOAR, watch this video on quantifying the ROI from security automation.