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SOC (Security Operations Center)

A SOC is the centralized team and facility responsible for monitoring, detecting, investigating, and responding to cybersecurity threats in an organization.

What is a SOC?How it typically works?Common techniquesImpactFurther reading

What is a SOC?

A Security Operations Center (SOC) is a dedicated function where people, processes, and technology converge to protect an organization against cyber threats. The SOC operates 24/7 in most medium and large enterprises. Its primary responsibility is to monitor systems, detect suspicious activity, investigate alerts, and coordinate incident response. By acting as the nerve center of cybersecurity, the SOC ensures threats are contained quickly before they escalate into major incidents.

How it typically works?

  1. Monitoring: SOC analysts continuously monitor logs, alerts, and network traffic through SIEM and detection platforms.
  2. Triage: alerts are classified based on severity, confidence, and business impact.
  3. Investigation: analysts gather context, pivoting across tools and data to determine if activity is malicious.
  4. Containment: confirmed incidents trigger containment actions such as isolating systems or blocking accounts.
  5. Eradication and recovery: SOC coordinates remediation with IT teams.
  6. Reporting and improvement: incidents are documented to refine processes and defenses.

Common techniques

  • Tiered analyst structure: L1 handles triage, L2 investigates, L3 hunts or reverse engineers.
  • Playbooks: standardized workflows for frequent incident types.
  • Threat hunting: proactive search for undetected adversaries.
  • Red team collaboration: testing defenses through adversary simulations.
  • Threat intelligence integration: using TI feeds to enrich alerts.
  • Metrics tracking: MTTR and dwell time as performance indicators.

Impact

The SOC is critical to enterprise security. Without it, threats would remain undetected or unresolved for long periods.

A mature SOC enables faster detection, coordinated response, and compliance with regulatory requirements. It also builds resilience by documenting incidents and improving future defenses.

However, SOCs face challenges such as alert fatigue, staffing shortages, and tool sprawl. Many organizations are evolving toward virtual SOCs, managed SOCs, or hybrid models to balance cost and coverage.

Further reading

Related topics

SIEMSOARXDRThreat Hunting