SIEM vs SOC: Understanding Their Distinct Roles
Security information and event management (SIEM) is a software platform that plugs into your IT infrastructure and monitors the security and log data being generated by applications and devices in near-real time. A Security Operations Center (SOC), however, is a centralized team of staff that collectively work to solve security issues across the entire organization. The SOC is responsible for the continuous monitoring and improvement of an organization’s security posture while detecting, analyzing, and preventing cybersecurity incidents.
While SIEM is almost always a critically necessary component within a SOC, the two fields’ capabilities are drastically different. Complicating this is the existence of SOC as a service (SOCaaS). This article will explore the differences between the two fields of SIEM and SOC, and how each can complement the other in a comprehensive security strategy.
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What Is the SOC's Role?
As the Security Operations Center, a SOC’s main purpose is to monitor and act on attacks that breach an enterprise’s defenses. Sometimes, they also act as a one-stop shop for wider security maintenance – conducting vulnerability assessments and incident response drills. The wide range of tasks can make it difficult to envision precisely how SOCs work, and muddy attempts to monitor and improve upon a team’s structure and optimization.
To illuminate the inner workings of a SOC, it is useful to break down the individual roles that lie within:
Triage Specialist, Tier 1
Tier-1 analysts sit closest to the raw security data in your organization. Their operational focus includes validating, assessing, and monitoring alerts with the relevant on-hand data. They also work to pick out legitimate alerts from the false positives, identify high-risk events, and prioritize incidents based on criticality.
Incident Responder, Tier 2
Tier-2 analysts address the security incidents that have been escalated by tier-1 responders. They conduct detailed assessments by comparing incidents against threat intelligence and known Indicators of Compromise (IoCs). Their role involves evaluating the scope of attacks and affected systems, converting raw attack data from tier-1 into actionable intelligence, and devising containment and recovery strategies.
Threat Hunter, Tier 3
Tier-3 analysts are the SOC’s most experienced members, handling significant incidents escalated by incident responders. They lead vulnerability assessments and penetration tests to uncover potential attack vectors. Their main focus is the proactive identification of threats, security gaps, and vulnerabilities. They also recommend improvements for security monitoring tools and review critical security alerts and intelligence gathered by tier-1 and tier-2 analysts.
SOC Manager
SOC managers lead the team, providing technical guidance and managing personnel. Their responsibilities encompass hiring, training, and evaluating team members; establishing processes, assessing incident reports, and developing crisis communication plans. Their role can also encompass the SOC’s financial management, support security audits, and report to the chief information security officer (CISO) or a similar top-level management position.
Given the relatively compact nature of a SOC’s structure, it is common to see SOC as a Service offered to organizations that don’t necessarily have the resources for a fully in-house team.
What Is the Role of SIEM within a SOC?
SOC analysts face the daunting task of protecting complex network and security architectures, which can generate tens or even hundreds of thousands of security alerts daily. Managing such an immense volume of alerts is beyond the capacity of many security teams, and is a consistent factor to major industry challenges like alert fatigue. This is where the right SIEM solution can become invaluable.
SIEM systems alleviate some of the burden on tier-1 and tier-2 SOC analysts by aggregating data from multiple sources and utilizing data analytics to identify the most probable threats. By filtering through vast amounts of information, SIEM solutions allow analysts to focus their efforts on the events that are most likely to constitute genuine attacks on their systems. Learn more about SIEM fundamentals here.
While commercial tools and preventative controls can handle the majority of low-sophistication, high-volume attacks, it is important to note that the threat landscape is continually evolving. Organizations with a threat profile of highly sophisticated, targeted attacks need to employ skilled individuals capable of addressing these advanced threats. SIEM solutions complement the expertise of these professionals by providing the data and insights necessary to identify and respond to complex security challenges effectively.
SIEM vs SOC: Key Differences
A SOC is a dedicated unit within an organization, responsible for the comprehensive management of the enterprise’s cybersecurity strategy. This includes detection, analysis, and response to security incidents, as well as the overall coordination and implementation of preventative measures. In particularly large organizations, the team may be referred to as a GSOC – or Global Security Operations Center.
Drilling down into the day-to-day functions of a SOC, the SIEM is a specific tool used to enhance the visibility of individual security events. to illuminate the differences between SOC and SIEM, think of the SOC as a team of investigative officers; their SIEM is like a network of security cameras, recording events as they happen. By keeping track of application logs and data, it is possible for the SIEM to provide aggregated data and automated analysis, pinpointing security threats far faster than manual discovery would. While a SOC encompasses the broader organizational security strategy, SIEM solutions are specialized tools that support the SOC’s operations.
The following table offers a feature-by-feature comparison:
SIEM | SOC | |
| Operational Focus | Gathers and correlates data from various sources, generating alerts based on predefined vendor or correlation rules, and offering reporting capabilities. | Utilizes a number of different tools (including SIEM) to comprehensively detect, analyze, and respond to cybersecurity incidents. |
| Threat Response Capabilities | Traditional SIEM systems can only analyze logs and generate alerts. More advanced tools do offer more detailed threat intel and automated responses. | Manually reacts to alerts by analyzing events, assessing their severity in their wider context, and chooses the best action to mitigate it. They may also engage in post-incident recovery efforts. |
| Scope | Narrow scope, concentrating solely on security event management and information. | Takes a far broader scope across organizational security pre- and post-attack. |
| Cost | Can incur significant cost, depending on the size of the organization and the amount of data that needs to be analyzed. Requires lots of expertise to set up and effectively manage. | Demands high investment – both to set up a dedicated team, and then retain skilled security professionals. |
What Challenges Do SOCs Face When Integrating with SIEM Systems?
Integrating a top-spec SIEM requires a degree of expertise. All too many organizations simply shell out for the highest-spec tool, only to meet with challenges that then introduce weaknesses throughout an entire SOC.
Log Demands
SIEM logging is at the heart of SIEM’s capability – it is the secret sauce that allows raw data to be transformed into meaningful insights. However, the way in which a SIEM tool handles logs needs to be tightly maintained throughout its lifespan. For instance, consider the fact that Windows-based systems don’t natively log all events; on this OS, logging of process and command line, Windows driver framework logs, and PowerShell logs, are not enabled by default.
However, enabling all of these with no tuning can quickly overburden a SIEM with essentially useless data. Furthermore, the Windows logs that are enabled by default come in handly, but also contain an abundance of noise. Log collection, as well as parsing and filtering require patience and time – not to mention continuous re-evaluation. Without this, SOC challenges are significantly harder to combat.
False Positives & Missed Attacks
Linked to the issue of log management is a SIEM tool’s approach to threat identification. High alert volumes contribute significantly to mitigation times – after all, if SOC analysts are left wading through endless alerts, their chances of reaching genuine security events in time are drastically lowered. These false positives are only one way in which improper configuration can mess with response times. Another is through misconfigured detection rules.
SIEM solutions are capable of automatically detecting some types of attacks – for instance, if a ZIP file is attached to an email. However, when the entirety of an organization’s threat detection capabilities are rule-based, they may overlook a novel or sophisticated attack – and it only takes one oversight for an attacker to gain or escalate the access they need.
Lost Context
A key challenge in SIEM management is an overarching focus on prioritizing data collection over log management.
Many SIEM implementations focus heavily on gathering data but often neglect log enrichment. This approach means that while SIEMs can generate alerts based on collected data and analysis, these alerts are not validated. As a result, despite being potentially higher quality and more context-based than the raw data, SIEM alerts can still include false positives.
For instance, consider an analyst reviewing a potentially suspicious domain. The DNS log might provide the domain name, source and destination IP header information. However, this limited data makes it challenging to determine whether the domain is malicious, suspicious, or benign. Without additional context and enriched information, the analyst’s judgment is essentially just speculation.
Deciding Between SIEM, SOC, or Integrating Both
While every organization is unique, there are a number of universal factors and approaches that make the question of “do I choose a SOC, a SIEM, or both?” easier to answer. First, though, it is important to throw out any inclination of comparing your organization’s coverage to your competitors’. While perfectly understandable, keep in mind that – if you have a breach that goes undetected – the postmortem report would benefit very little from stating that your industry peers didn’t have that security tool either.
To answer the question, the first point of consideration is your attack surface. From intellectual property to personnel data and business systems, your organization likely has more vulnerable assets than you might realize. In today’s world, information is a highly sought-after commodity – meaning that protecting business data is equally essential. This is fundamentally why SOCs have become a standard practice in almost every sector. Separating cybersecurity from your current IT staff further allows for dedicated and continuous protection that 9:00 to 5:00 IT support simply isn’t positioned to provide. That’s one question answered.
The other – whether to invest in a SIEM tool as well as a SOC – comes down to what your SOC team needs to keep your organization safe. If your enterprise has a verifiably unchanging low risk profile – and doesn’t need to adhere to specific compliance obligations – it may be possible to dodge the cost of extra security tools for now. However, for any enterprise that handles customer data – including payment, personal information such as email addresses, and healthcare – it is worth delving deeper into what your SOC needs to perform efficiently.
Why Both Is Usually Best
While every organization is unique, the existence of common attack methods means that some approaches can be almost universally applied to build a better security stance. MITRE ATT&CK is one such open source framework. By modeling attacker methodologies, organizations are able to infuse their processes and controls with an attacker-first mindset.
A SIEM tool represents one of the most efficient and effective ways of applying this philosophical framework to an organization. By modeling each SIEM alert rule on a specific tactic and technique, your SOC is able to build a genuine picture of what your ruleset can adequately prevent. This deep understanding enables you to explain the nuances of the coverage that exists – meaning it is able to improve over time.
Furthermore, with this foundation of TTP-driven alerts, it becomes possible for your organization to benefit from SOC automation. Converting all relevant logs into a ticket, even basic SIEM tools, the incident can then be automatically assigned to the most relevant member of your SOC team, based on their expertise and availability. They can then begin a further assessment with all the relevant information at their disposal.
Go Beyond Siloed Tooling with Stellar Cyber
Stellar Cyber’s SOC automation goes above and beyond individual platforms: rather than looking solely at logs, Stellar Cyber’s Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platform automates data collection across all environments and applications. By intelligently collecting the right data across networks, servers, VMs, endpoints, and cloud instances, the powerful data-analysis engine can then correlate Cases according to real-life threat intel. All of this analysis is then offered via a single analysis platform, allowing SOC analysts to begin an investigation one step ahead.
Stellar Cyber presents threats in a mitigation-led format, allowing analysts to identify root causes and crush threats faster than ever before. Explore Stellar Cyber’s leading XDR today and discover an approach that goes beyond static rulesets.
