Operations Technology

SOC for OT – Manufacturing (Operations Technology)

What is a SOC?

At a time when users are increasingly mobile and edge networks are migrating to the cloud, IT resources are more exposed to threats (malware, ransomware, phishing, DDOS attack, brute force attack...). Enterprises need consistent security controls that cover both Cloud and On-Premises environments. These controls must take into account the identity context to better anticipate, prevent, detect and react to threats, with the aim of making your information more secure.

SOC definition

The Security Operations Center, SOC, refers to the team responsible for ensuring the information security.

The SOC is a platform that allows the information system security monitoring and management through collection tools, event correlation and remote intervention. The SIEM (Security Information Event Management) is SOC main tool since it allows to manage an SI events.

SOC is aimed to detect, analyze, and correct cybersecurity incidents using different technology solutions and approaches. They monitor and analyze activity on networks, servers, endpoints, databases, applications, websites, and other systems for weak signals or abnormal behaviors that may indicate a security incident or compromise. The SOC must ensure that potential security incidents are properly identified, analyzed, defended, investigated, and reported. SOCs are generally composed of security analysts and engineers, as well as managers who oversee security operations. Additional capabilities of some SOCs may include advanced analysis, cryptanalysis, and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents. SSC teams work closely with response teams to ensure that the security issue is properly addressed once it has been discovered.

How does a SOC work?

The first step in establishing a SOC is to clearly define a strategy that integrates different departments´ specific company objectives. Once the strategy is developed, the necessary infrastructure is established to support it. A typical SOC infrastructure includes firewalls, IPS/IDS, breach detection solutions, probes, and a security information and event management system (SIEM). The technology must exist to collect data through data streams, measurements, packet entry, syslog and other methods so that data activity may be correlated and analyzed by OSC teams. The Security Operations Center also monitors network and endpoint vulnerabilities to protect sensitive data and comply with industry or government regulations.

Why install a SOC?

The main advantage of having a security operations center is the improvement of security incident detection through continuous monitoring and analysis of data activity. However, creating and operating a SOC is complicated and expensive. Companies establish them for several reasons, such as:

• Protect sensitive data
• Comply with industry standards such as PCI DSS
• Comply with government standards such as GPG53 CESG

Uninterrupted monitoring of data activity across an organization's networks, endpoints, servers, and databases gives organizations an advantage in defending against incidents and intrusions, regardless of the source, time of day, or type of attack. A security operations center helps companies bridge the gap between the time it takes the hacker to compromise the system and the time it takes to detect the threat, as well as keep their environment abreast of threats.