Security orchestration, automation and response, or SOAR, technologies enable organizations to efficiently observe, understand, decide upon and act on security incidents from a single interface.
Gartner originally came up with the term to describe the convergence of security orchestration and automation, security incident response platforms (SIRP) and threat intelligence platforms (TIPs). The abbreviations can get confusing: You might also see SOAR referred to as SA&O, although a true SOAR platform will go beyond just security automation (SA) and security automation and orchestration (SA&O) by integrating a full-function incident response capability as well.
SOAR is poised to revolutionize security operations, specifically the way security teams manage, analyze and respond to alerts and threats. Without some type of security automation, security analysts end up dealing with a rising number of cyberattacks manually coming from increasingly sophisticated bad actors.
Security analysts are responsible for handling thousands (sometimes even millions) of alerts, meaning they have to decide which alerts to take seriously and act on, and which can be ignored. Incident response and recovery can take days or longer — and that’s if you have an adequate staff of qualified people. Globally, the industry is facing a severe shortage of cybersecurity talent.
In light of these factors, it’s possible that you have a security team suffering from alert fatigue. As a result, they may be missing real threats and making an egregious number of errors as they try to deal with issues quickly and on the fly.
That’s where SOAR comes in. In short, SOAR platforms help to clear out mundane tasks tying up your security administrators’ time using automation, while also offering them orchestration across their security infrastructures to be more productive. It enables them to handle more incidents, investigate the most important issues more deeply, and broadly improve your organization’s overall security posture.
In this article, we’ll explore the various components of SOAR, including security automation and orchestration, along with the differences between them. We’ll also discuss why SOAR is important for enterprises and how you can get the most value from your SOAR solution.
What Is SOAR: Contents
What is security automation?
Security automation is the machine-based execution of security actions with the power to programmatically detect, investigate and remediate cyberthreats without the need for human intervention.
SA does much of the work for your security staff, so they no longer have to weed through and manually address every alert as it comes in. Security automation can:
All of that can happen in seconds, without any involvement from human staff. Repetitive, time-consuming actions are taken out of the hands of security analysts so they can focus on more important, value-adding work.
What is security orchestration?
Security orchestration is the machine-based coordination of a series of interdependent security actions across a complex infrastructure. It ensures that all of your security tools — and even non-security tools — are working in concert, while automating tasks across products and workflows.
SO coordinates incident investigation, response and ultimately resolution. Additionally, it eliminates the need for security analysts to navigate multiple screens and systems, compiling everything in one place and displaying it on a single dashboard.
Security orchestration can:
Ultimately, orchestration increases the integration of your defenses, allowing your security team to automate complex processes, and maximize the value you receive from your security staff, processes and tools.
What are some SOAR use cases?
One of the smartest things you can do before you begin talking to vendors about SOAR platforms is to think about how your organization will use the solution. Use cases should represent your greatest pain points and dictate how you can benefit the most from the technology.
Typical use cases are highly contingent on your industry. Here are some examples that will prompt you to think about how you could use SOAR in your own organization.
What is the difference between automation and orchestration?
Security automation is all about simplifying and making your security operations run more efficiently, while security orchestration connects all of your different security tools so that they feed into one another.
Security automation and security orchestration are terms that are often used interchangeably, but the two platforms actually serve very different roles. Among other things, security automation reduces the time it takes to detect and respond to repetitive incidents and false positives, so alerts don’t linger unaddressed for ages. It also frees security analysts’ time to focus on strategic tasks, like investigative research. However, security automation is limited in that each playbook addresses a known scenario with a prescribed course of action.
Security orchestration, on the other hand, allows you to share information easily and enables multiple tools to respond to incidents as a group, even when the data is spread across a large network and multiple systems or devices. Security orchestration uses multiple automated tasks to execute a complete, complex process or workflow.
In summary, security automation deals with an array of single tasks, while security orchestration connects and speeds up the process from beginning to end. They work best in concert — and security groups can maximize their efficiency and productivity when they adopt both.
How are SOAR and SIEM different?
While most SOAR solutions are deployed alongside security information and event management (SIEM), they aren’t the same thing.
SIEM is a security management system that offers full visibility into activity within your environment, empowering you to identify threats in real time. It collects, parses and categorizes security-relevant data from a wide range of sources — in seconds — then analyzes that data to provide insights, specifically on unusual behavior, so you can act accordingly.
Like SOAR, it does the work that would be impossible to do manually. Also, like SOAR, SIEM aggregates event data across disparate sources within your network infrastructure, including servers, systems, devices and applications, from perimeter to end user. Unlike a SOAR platform, a SIEM solution serves as your security data repository and provides an efficient means to search, correlate and analyze all data available.
It’s worth noting that because SIEM and SOAR complement one another, many vendors offer both, and eventually they may even merge into a single platform.
Why is SOAR important?
Your security team is probably drowning in a proverbial sea of alerts, many of which are false positives and repeats of previously observed alerts. The average security team is dealing with upward of 175,000 alerts per week. Hidden in all that noise are very real threats, many of which go completely unaddressed if security analysts are manually handling each one.
That’s where SOAR can make a huge difference, alleviating many of those repetitive, mundane actions so your security team can focus on more important work.
SOAR enables you to:
How do you get the most value out of SOAR?
As with all security tools, the real value of SOAR is in how you use it. However, just as important are the steps you take before you deploy the tool. Follow these best practices to gain the most value from your SOAR platform investment:
How do you get started with SOAR?
If you’re ready to see how SOAR can improve your overall security operations, the next step is to look for the right SOAR tool. Here are the capabilities that you should look for:
SOAR can optimize your security operations
You have the opportunity to enable your security team to do the impossible: Keep up with the never-ending security alerts that plague a highly complex IT environment. Freeing your team from dealing with false positives, repetitive alerts and low-risk warnings, SOAR lets you pivot from a reactionary approach to a more proactive one. Rather than fighting fires, security analysts can put their talents and extensive training to better use, ultimately improving your organization’s overall security posture.
Learn more about SOAR and what it can do for your business: