As the volume and sophistication of cyber threats continue to escalate, security teams are struggling to keep pace. The average organization now faces over 200,000 security events per day, far exceeding the capacity of human analysts to investigate and respond effectively. Increasingly, companies are turning to Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) tools to help manage this deluge of alerts, coordinate defense activities, and dramatically accelerate incident response times.
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In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll dive deep into what SOAR technology is, how it works, and the key benefits it provides to cybersecurity programs. We‘ll examine emerging use cases, critical challenges to implementation, and best practices for success. Finally, we‘ll look at the history and evolution of SOAR and where this exciting technology is headed in the future.
Understanding SOAR: Components and Capabilities
At its core, SOAR is a collection of software capabilities that allow organizations to collect data about security threats from multiple sources and automate the responses to those threats. Gartner defines SOAR as:
"Technologies that enable organizations to take inputs from a variety of sources (mostly from security information and event management [SIEM] systems) and apply workflows aligned to processes and procedures. These can then be used to define incident analysis and response procedures in a digital workflow format."
In essence, SOAR platforms integrate three critical capabilities:
Orchestration – Connecting and coordinating different security tools and systems to work together seamlessly and share data. SOAR tools act as a central hub to manage and harmonize alerts and activities across the security stack.
Automation – Using machine learning, workflows, and playbooks to automate repetitive, time-consuming security tasks that previously required manual effort from analysts. This could include blocking suspicious IPs, quarantining infected hosts, or opening IT tickets.
Response – Defining and executing the appropriate steps to investigate, contain, eradicate, and recover from a security incident. SOAR helps guide and track the response process to ensure consistency and auditability.
By unifying these powerful capabilities into a cohesive platform, SOAR empowers security teams to dramatically increase the speed and consistency of their incident response function while reducing costs.
Some key features found in leading SOAR tools include:
Playbooks – Pre-defined, automated workflows for responding to common security incidents like malware infections, DDoS attacks, or data exfiltration attempts. Playbooks ensure a standardized, best-practice response every time.
Case Management – Collaborative tools for assigning, tracking, and documenting incident response activities. Cases compile all the relevant context and evidence for an incident in a single location.
Threat Intel – The ability to quickly query multiple internal and external threat intelligence sources to identify known indicators of compromise (IOCs) and guide response.
Reporting & Metrics – Detailed dashboards and reports to track key incident response metrics, measure SOAR return on investment (ROI), and identify areas for improvement.
The real power of SOAR comes from the ability to customize and combine these capabilities to fit an organization‘s unique environment, tools, and processes. By codifying tribal knowledge into automated workflows, SOAR makes security teams smarter and nimbler while reducing burnout and turnover.
The Business Benefits of SOAR
The impacts of implementing SOAR to a security operations program can be transformational. According to an in-depth Total Economic Impact study conducted by Forrester, a typical organization deploying SOAR can experience benefits of nearly $3.6 million over three years, including:
- 95% reduction in incident response times
- 86% reduction in false positives
- $1.2 million saved through human resource efficiencies
Let‘s examine some of the key areas where SOAR drives value:
Accelerated Incident Response
The biggest benefit of SOAR is the ability to dramatically reduce the time required to detect, investigate, and contain cybersecurity incidents. With automated data enrichment, decision making, and enforcement, SOAR eliminates many manual steps, accelerating response times from days or hours to just seconds.
According to SANS Institute research, the mean time to detect and contain a data breach is 280 days. The longer threats dwell in an environment undetected, the costlier and more disruptive they become to remediate. SOAR helps organizations become more proactive, rapidly cutting off attack kill chains before damage is done.
One large enterprise using IBM‘s Resilient SOAR platform was able to reduce its mean time to respond (MTTR) to security incidents by 91%, from an average of 14 hours to less than 1 hour. In an environment where every minute counts, these time savings are invaluable.
Increased SOC Efficiency
Security teams today are chronically understaffed and overwhelmed. According to the ISC2, the global shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals now exceeds 4 million. Analysts regularly face alert fatigue and burnout as they struggle to keep up with a tsunami of security event data spread across dozens of tools and consoles.
SOAR helps tackle this challenge by streamlining and scaling critical SOC workflows. By codifying repetitive tasks into automated playbooks, SOAR reduces toil and allows a junior analyst to perform like a seasoned expert. Mundane incidents are resolved without human intervention, while complex events are enriched with context and intelligence for faster triage.
One government agency using Splunk Phantom found its security team was able to handle 3 times as many alerts with the same staffing level after deploying SOAR. Multiply those efficiencies across an entire security organization and the productivity gains are substantial.
Enhanced Visibility and Collaboration
Modern cyber attacks are sophisticated, fast-moving, and pervasive, often spanning multiple systems and data sources. Investigating and responding to these threats requires close coordination across IT, legal, PR, and executive teams to assess business impact and execute remediation and communication plans.
SOAR platforms provide a centralized incident response hub to coordinate these activities. All the relevant data and context for a security event is automatically collected into a single case, providing unified visibility. Customized workflows and collaboration features ensure the right people are engaged at the right time with clear tasks and responsibilities.
For example, one financial services firm using Palo Alto Networks‘ Cortex XSOAR saw incident escalations drop by 97% by automatically routing alerts to the right personnel and tracking actions to completion. Security teams can focus on higher-priority activities instead of chasing each other for updates.
Greater Consistency and Control
Cybersecurity remains a highly manual practice, with analysts relying heavily on individual knowledge and "gut feel" to guide their decisions. This leads to wide variations in the speed and effectiveness of incident response activities, with costly mistakes and oversights.
SOAR enables organizations to encapsulate their ideal security processes into automated playbooks that execute consistently every time. Tribal knowledge is codified and scaled, reducing reliance on in-demand security experts. Granular audit trails show exactly what actions were taken, by whom, for assured compliance and control.
After adopting D3 Security‘s SOAR platform, a leading energy company was able to consistently meet its 1-hour SLA for threat containment by automating its response workflows, a target that was frequently missed when performed manually. Consistent, compliant processes are particularly critical for organizations facing strict data protection and reporting mandates.
SOAR Use Cases
The flexible nature of SOAR technology allows it to be applied to a wide variety of cybersecurity use cases and industries. Some common SOAR applications include:
| Use Case | Description | Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Phishing Response | Automatically analyze suspicious emails, extract IOCs, block malicious URLs, delete messages from inboxes | Reduce phishing investigation time by 90% or more |
| Malware Triage | Collect and enrich malware alerts from multiple tools, automate reputation checks and sandbox detonation | Prioritize legit malware infections in seconds vs hours |
| Threat Hunting | Proactively search environments for hidden threats using automated queries and filters | Increased threat coverage without additional headcount |
| Cloud Security | Continuously monitor IaaS/SaaS environments for misconfigurations and suspicious activity | Ensure consistent control and visibility of cloud assets |
| Compliance Reporting | Automatically aggregate and harmonize compliance data from multiple security controls | Reduce audit prep time from weeks to hours |
As SOAR tools mature and gain new capabilities, expect to see innovative use cases continue to emerge.
SOAR Challenges and Pitfalls
While the benefits of SOAR are compelling, the technology is not a silver bullet. Implementing SOAR requires careful planning, integration, and iteration to succeed. Some of the key challenges organizations face with SOAR include:
Tool Sprawl and Complexity
The average enterprise now has 75 different security tools deployed, many with overlapping capabilities. Simply layering a SOAR platform on top of this chaos won‘t yield results. Security teams must rationalize and integrate their toolsets to work harmoniously and avoid data silos. Focus on tools with robust APIs and avoid legacy products with limited interoperability.
Overambitious Automation
One of the biggest mistakes rookie SOAR teams make is attempting to automate everything on day one. Not every process is suitable for automation – many still require human analysis and judgement to perform effectively. Start your automation journey by focusing on a few high-impact, low-complexity workflows and build competency over time. Walk before you run!
Playbook Stagnation
While SOAR playbooks are powerful, they are not set-and-forget. As attackers evolve their tools and tactics, yesterday‘s playbook may become tomorrow‘s liability. Treating SOAR content like a living project is critical. Establish a cadence to regularly review, test, and update your automation content to ensure it remains relevant and effective.
Talent and Upskilling
To unlock the full potential of SOAR, security teams need a balance of technical and process skills. Analysts must be comfortable working with APIs, JSON, and basic scripting to extend and customize their SOAR platform. Focus on hiring and developing well-rounded team members and empower them with the time and resources to experiment with automation.
The Past, Present, and Future of SOAR
While SOAR may seem like a cutting-edge technology, its roots trace back nearly a decade to the early days of security incident response platforms. Let‘s take a quick tour through the history and projected future of SOAR:
- 2012 – Resilient Systems (later acquired by IBM) launches one of the first stand-alone IR platforms, introducing basic orchestration and automation concepts.
- 2015 – Gartner coins the term "SOAR", publishing its initial Market Guide and recognizing the technology‘s transformative potential. Early adopters like Phantom and Demisto (now Splunk and Palo Alto) gain traction.
- 2018 – SOAR enters the mainstream, with over 50% of enterprises actively deploying or evaluating the technology. M&A accelerates as large security vendors acquire leading SOAR startups.
- 2020 – Driven by surging threat activity and remote work shift, SOAR adoption approaches 70%. Solutions become more vertically-focused for key industries and use cases.
- 2022 and Beyond – SOAR converges with adjacent markets like SIEM, XDR, and threat intelligence. Platforms become more proactive and autonomous, leveraging AI/ML to self-heal and adapt to emerging threats with less human intervention.
While SOAR is still a relatively young market, it‘s clear the technology is here to stay. As cyber threats grow in frequency and sophistication, automation and orchestration will become table stakes just to keep pace. Fortunately, with SOAR, security teams now have a powerful ally to level the playing field.
Getting Started with SOAR
If your organization is considering deploying SOAR technology, there are a few key steps you should take to ensure a successful outcome:
Assess Your Maturity – Evaluate your current incident response function and identify areas for automation. Focus on tasks that are repetitive, time-sensitive, and prone to human error. Use a framework like the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to gauge your IR maturity.
Identify Quick Wins – Start your SOAR journey with a few high-impact use cases that can demonstrate fast results. Phishing triage, indicator enrichment, and basic threat containment steps are good places to begin. Communicate these early successes to build momentum and secure executive support.
Evaluate SOAR Vendors – Look for SOAR solutions that integrate well with your existing security and IT toolsets. Consider the vendor‘s experience in your industry vertical and use cases. Prioritize features like visual playbook builders, robust APIs, and out-of-the-box content packs to accelerate your deployment.
Develop Processes and People – Implementing SOAR is not just a technology project. Align your processes and incident workflows to follow a consistent, repeatable structure that can be automated. Invest in upskilling your analysts to be "automation-ready" and reward those who contribute new playbooks and integrations.
Measure and Iterate – Establish metrics to quantify the effectiveness and ROI of your SOAR deployment. Track key performance indicators (KPIs) like mean time to detect/respond, analyst caseload, and false positives. Use this data to inform future automation priorities and process improvements.
With a clear strategy, cross-functional alignment, and a commitment to continuous improvement, SOAR can take your cybersecurity operations to new heights of speed, scale, and resilience.
Conclusion: Faster, Smarter, Stronger Security with SOAR
In the face of unrelenting cyber threats and chronic talent shortages, security teams need force multipliers to stay ahead of the adversary. SOAR technology has emerged as a transformative solution, helping organizations dramatically accelerate their incident response capabilities while improving the efficiency and consistency of their security programs.
By combining the power of machine-driven automation and human-guided analysis, SOAR allows lean security teams to respond faster, scale higher, and cover more ground than ever thought possible. While the technology is not without its challenges, the benefits of SOAR adoption are simply too great to ignore in today‘s threat landscape.
Whether your organization is an early adopter or a curious onlooker, now is the time to explore how SOAR can strengthen your cyber resilience. With a thoughtful approach, the right platform, and a spirit of continuous improvement, SOAR can be a game-changing asset in the fight to protect your critical data and operations from harm.
Don‘t let the next headline-grabbing breach happen on your watch. Unlock the full potential of your security program with SOAR – and sleep easier knowing your organization is ready for whatever threats may come.
