By Shira Landau, Editor-in-Chief, CyberTalk.org

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

If your organization maintains a Global Security Operations Center (GSOC), ensure that you’re not heavily reliant on legacy systems and processes. In this article, find out about how to strategically advance your operations, enabling you to effectively prevent threats and drive more sustainable business outcomes.

What is a global security operations center?

In the early days of computing, a Security Operations Center (SOC) functioned as a physical ‘command center’ for security analysts. SOCs were comprised of rooms where staff sat shoulder-to-shoulder, looking at screens showing details from dozens of different security tools.

Large organizations with multiple Security Operations Centers (SOCs) began to consolidate them into Regional Security Operations Centers (RSOC) or a Global Security Operations Center, leading to faster remediation, reduced risk and a stronger cyber security posture overall.

In terms of function, a global security operations center monitors security, addresses threats before they become disruptive issues, responds to incidents, and liaise with stakeholders.

What are the benefits of a global security operations center?

A global security operations center allows an organization to contend with diverse security threats at-scale. Specific benefits include continuous monitoring, centralized visibility, increased efficiency and reduced costs. A global security operations center can also oversee and coordinate regional SOCs, network operations centers (NOCs) and operational teams.

What makes a good global security operations center?

• For any global security operations center, access to timely and relevant threat intelligence is critical. GSOC staff need to remain updated on emerging cyber and physical security threats, as to stay ahead of potential risks.
• Highly trained staff who can collaborate effectively with all stakeholders are also invaluable assets for a global security operations center.
• Top-tier GSOCs have built-in redundancies of all kinds; from communication to data backups.
• All GSOCs need to ensure that their organization adheres to industry regulations and compliance standards.

4 ways to advance your global security operations center

1. Ensure that the cyber security strategy aligns with business objectives. GSOCs need to know what the business aims to achieve, and must understand the corresponding threats and vulnerabilities that could hamper progress. Risk assessments should include both cyber security and business stakeholders, who can assist with the identification of resources that require protection.

Security policies and standards should also meet customer expectations. To gain insight around this, cyber security leaders may wish to join business planning meetings. Attendance can also assist with awareness around any upcoming business changes and implementation of appropriate, corresponding security measures.

2. Global security operations centers should shift towards the zero trust model. Zero trust is designed to reduce cyber security risk by eliminating implicit trust within an organization’s IT infrastructure. It states that a user should only have access and permissions required to fulfill their role.

Implementation of zero trust can be tough, especially if an organization has numerous interconnected and distributed systems. Organizations can simplify zero trust implementation through vendor-based solutions.

Tools like Quantum SASE Private Access allow teams to quickly connect users, sites, clouds and resources with a zero trust network access policy. In under an hour, security teams can apply least privilege to any enterprise resource.

Security gateways also enable organizations to create network segmentation. With detailed visibility into users, groups, applications, machines and connection types, gateways allow security professionals to easily set and enforce a ‘least privileged’ access policy.

3. Advance your global security operations center by mapping to industry standards and detection frameworks. Explore the MITRE ATT&CK framework. Standards like NIST and ISO27001 can also assist with identifying and reconciling gaps in an organization’s existing security systems.

4. Consider deploying a tool like Horizon SOC, which allows organizations to utilize the exact same tools that are used by Check Point Security Research, a leading provider of cyber threat intelligence globally.

Horizon SOC offers 99.9% precision across network, cloud, endpoint, mobile and IoT. Easily deployed as a unified cloud-based platform, it has powerful AI-based features designed to increase security operations efficiency.

Further thoughts

Strategic updates to global security operations centers not only enhance cyber security, they also enrich overarching business resilience – an increasingly common point of discussion among C-level stakeholders and the board.

By implementing the suggestions outlined above, organizations will maximize their opportunities for business longevity and continued business success.