11 Ways You Can benefit from a Managed SOC Service Provider

Becoming a victim of cybercrime can have devastating consequences on your reputation, brand, and bottom line. Because of this, it's vital that you invest in SOC (Security Operations Center) services to prevent attacks from happening in the first place and to manage your security incidents when they do happen. However, SOC services are extremely complex and have many features to consider before deciding on one that's right for you. To help you make the best decision possible, here are 11 ways you can benefit from working with a managed SOC service provider like ours at BlackRock Solutions, Inc.

1. Expense control

Keeping an eye on your security spending can be difficult, even for an in-house team. When you outsource to a managed security operations center (MSOC), you don't have to worry about monitoring your budget or trying to negotiate with vendors. Instead, focus on your core business and know that your managed SOC service provider is working hard to keep up with changing industry trends and protect your network. Keep in mind that MOOCs can do much more than manage outsourced IT services. Some providers offer features such as breach detection and response, cyber incident analysis, threat intelligence services, and more. In fact, some companies are turning to MOOCs not only for their SOC management services but also for their cybersecurity consulting expertise. If you want help building out your company's security program or improving its overall effectiveness, give a managed SOC service provider a call today.
You might want to consider asking these questions: How will they protect my data? How will they detect threats? How will they mitigate attacks? How can I get ahead of potential problems before they occur? How will they educate me and my employees on best practices related to cybersecurity so we can stay safe online? What are their certifications and accreditations? Do they hold themselves accountable through regular audits by third parties?

2. SOC Expertise in Demand

An on-demand managed SOC service provider can help your company focus its limited resources where they will be most effective. Letting someone else manage your Security Operations Center can reduce overall costs, freeing up time and money for other initiatives. When you outsource to an experienced security partner, you also have access to their expertise, which means you get better visibility into emerging threats and compliance issues. And because they are constantly monitoring your infrastructure 24/7/365, they will be able to resolve issues more quickly and thoroughly than if you were doing it in-house.

A managed SOC service provider's access to cutting-edge technology and resources may also lead to innovation opportunities for your organization that otherwise wouldn't exist without them. For example, your SOC vendor might be able to provide threat intelligence feeds or offer new cloud services that make sense for your environment. Additionally, depending on how much they are managing, they could bring added value by serving as a consultant or advisor as well as a problem solver. This added support could be beneficial when it comes to resolving complex problems like data breaches or responding effectively to advanced cyberattacks. All of these benefits make having an expert managed SOC service provider worth considering when trying to determine how best to invest in SOC capabilities within your organization.

3. Automated Vulnerability Management

The most obvious benefit of a managed SOC service provider is automated vulnerability management. With an experienced, professional service provider, you can improve your security posture simply by relying on their expertise and best practices. An outsourced operation center that specializes in managing your entire organization's security can help you with better security-control placement, more efficient operations, and reducing overall vulnerabilities. Many dedicated operations centers specialize in implementing controls specific to your business needs as well. For example, if PCI compliance is important to you or you deal with highly regulated data, they will be experts at making sure your business meets all PCI or HIPAA compliance standards while helping reduce risk and enhance protection measures related to your sensitive data.

4. Metric driven alerts

Most organizations have insufficient visibility into their network. The immediate challenge is to ensure you have visibility into your network traffic and traffic flows, along with configuration and change management throughout. A managed security operations center (SOC) can effectively automate these functions and enable self-service across multiple devices, while also providing many benefits: reducing alert volumes, implementing alerts on things you care about, prioritizing critical issues appropriately, and eliminating false positives. In addition to using activity-based metrics, look for an advanced monitoring platform that includes topology mapping of your environment for displaying data visually on a single console view. It's not just about what's happening in your network today, it's also important to know what happened yesterday and last week. This will help you identify trends or patterns that may be impacting performance or security. This information can help you determine if there are potential problems brewing in advance before they become serious incidents.

5. Proactive Monitoring Coverage

With managed security operations center (SOC) services, your company has 24/7 coverage from an experienced team of professionals. Their job is to look for suspicious activity and work with you to make sure your company's vulnerabilities are being addressed. A managed SOC service is typically more proactive than traditional approaches to cyber security. Instead of waiting for an intrusion or data breach before taking action, they will proactively monitor your systems looking for vulnerabilities and/or abnormalities that could be precursors to an attack. This means that your company will likely not just recover more quickly in case of a breach but also prevent it all together through early detection efforts.

When considering a managed SOC service provider, make sure they have experience dealing with small businesses like yours. Large enterprises might require different capabilities and response times than smaller organizations do. While some vendors can provide all sizes of clients with their full range of services, others specialize in working with small companies or have specific products designed for those customers.

6. Risk Assessment and Penetration Testing Support

A managed SOC service provider can help you with information security, risk assessment, and penetration testing. These services all fall under incident management; if you're doing them in-house, they'll quickly become overwhelming. By using a managed SOC service provider, you'll have someone to help you respond to breaches and to proactively assess your risks. If there are areas where your security could use improvement, your managed SOC provider will be able to identify it for you and offer suggestions for how to fix it. That's worth its weight in gold you may find that it's easier or more affordable to resolve an issue than you thought. Or maybe something will catch your eye in passing that can address another problem of yours down the road.

7. Continuous Compliance with Real-Time Alerts

The managed security operations center ensures that you're in compliance with best practices and industry regulations. SOC services also help fill gaps between vulnerability assessments and other software/processes to enable your staff to focus on security incidents and intrusion detection, which may be out of scope for automation tools or not available through a third-party service. How does it benefit you? One way is by providing real-time alerts, which means that if an attack on your network occurs, people are immediately alerted that something's amiss and can begin taking steps to recover as quickly as possible. The quicker you detect threats against your company, users, or customers, the easier it is to keep things under control without extensive remediation time.

8. 24/7 Incident Response Support & Intelligence Gathering

Security teams operate 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. With managed SOC service providers, you can rest assured that your security team will be available to address incidents whenever and wherever they arise. A managed SOC service provides round-the-clock incident response support and intelligence gathering to help security teams get ahead of threats in real-time. In addition, several SOC vendors offer predictive analysis tools that allow clients to monitor for suspicious activity based on historical data  all from one central dashboard. These tools can tell you exactly what hackers are up to so you can decide how best to protect your organization against potential breaches. They're also incredibly useful for evaluating and optimizing current IT systems, as well as planning future investments.

An advanced SOC service helps security professionals detect advanced attacks that go undetected by standard firewall software or antivirus programs. If you're not sure if you need an advanced SOC service provider or if it would be worth investing in such a system, ask yourself these questions: Do I want to prevent malware before it infects my network? Do I want to stop phishing emails before they reach employees? Do I want to know if someone is trying to gain access to my network via social media or other methods? Would any business suffer significantly if their data were stolen? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then an advanced SOC is probably right for your business.

9. Improve employee's productivity

One of the main reasons why many organizations decide to outsource their SOC is because it's a way to improve employee productivity. A managed security service provider is in charge of all day-to-day issues that might arise within your organization and eliminating these tasks will give your employees more time to focus on their core responsibilities. Along with providing better employee productivity, outsourcing can also help you retain and engage your current staff by simplifying management processes, cutting costs, and boosting morale. So if improving employee performance is an important factor for you, then managed security services are definitely worth considering.

10. Improved Reporting and Analysis

Let's say you already have a SOC but it's not managed; that is, you don't have dedicated SOC staff on site. A managed SOC could provide more in-depth analysis and reporting than your existing solution. A top-notch managed service provider may also be able to offer additional layers of security that may not be available with an internally managed solution. For example, they might include web application firewalls, integrated multi-cloud security (such as checking for vulnerabilities across Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud), threat monitoring, and even 24/7/365 support. The bottom line: by switching to a managed service provider, you might find yourself spending less time managing reports and analytics.

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11. Enhance operational efficiency

When you outsource security to a managed SOC service provider, your organization is gaining both knowledgeable experts and round-the-clock monitoring of your computer systems. For example, if an application or website goes down or starts misbehaving, a managed SOC service provider can immediately investigate it and begin fixing it. If you have internal security personnel working on these issues instead, they'll need to consult with one another before they can start resolving them. The benefits of outsourcing security include enhanced operational efficiency and cost savings. With your IT team focused on what they do best managing infrastructure and software applications. your business has fewer interruptions due to IT problems. And by choosing a managed SOC service provider, you're freeing up funds that would otherwise be spent maintaining staff in-house.

For many organizations, budget constraints are one of their biggest concerns when it comes to ensuring optimal network security. By leveraging services provided by a professional SOC service provider, companies can save money without sacrificing essential protection for their networks and data.

Conclusion

SOC security providers allow businesses to have an IT security professional on-site for all of their needs. A managed SOC service provider can provide a number of benefits to your business, such as protecting you against identity theft, keeping all data on-site and private, keeping cybercriminals out of your system, identifying weak spots in your infrastructure, and reducing risk management costs. So why aren't more companies using them? Chances are they don't know that they exist! Let us help spread awareness by tweeting at 10 people who manage their own SOCs or think they can handle it themselves; you never know how many might be interested in outsourcing those duties.