SOAR Software

Your organization—be it small, midsize, or large—should always be prepared to counter cyberattacks. To ensure this, your security team uses various tools such as firewall, network security, and antivirus solutions. But managing all of these systems while simultaneously monitoring the growing number of cyberthreats can be a complicated task, and a single miss can make you the victim of an attack.

Security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) software helps ease this burden by centralizing data from various security tools onto a single unified platform and by automating repetitive threat detection and response processes. It collects data from all security systems, analyzes the data, and highlights incidents via alerts and notifications.

A wide range of SOAR software options is available on the market, and choosing the one that best meets your needs and budget is important. This guide will help you understand the different factors you must consider when shortlisting a SOAR solution.

Here's what we'll cover:

• What is SOAR software?
• Common features of SOAR software
• What type of buyer are you?
• Benefits of SOAR software
• Market trends to understand

What is SOAR software?

SOAR software is a software tool that helps businesses automate security operations, manage threats and vulnerabilities, and respond to security incidents. It includes features such as threat intelligence, incident management, and analytics to help the security operations team identify, analyze, and counter incidents such as malware attacks and phishing scams.

The software collects data from various sources, including internal security tools, and analyzes this data to set up automated threat response workflows that can replace repetitive manual processes, such as threat hunting, data breach identification, security escalation, auditing, and stakeholder review.

Common features of SOAR software

Selecting a SOAR tool is easier when you know what the most common features are and what they do. Let’s look at some common features of SOAR systems.

What type of buyer are you?

Before evaluating SOAR software options, you should know which buyer category you belong to. Most buyers belong to one of the following categories:

• Buyers looking for no-code SOAR tools: These buyers don’t have the technology infrastructure or expertise needed to write, test, and maintain custom codes for their SOAR applications. They should opt for a software tool that can automate even complex security operations using predefined automation workflows or plug-and-play capabilities.
• Buyers looking for code-based SOAR tools: These buyers wish to create custom codes for their SOAR platforms so that they can modify the tool as per their needs. They also don’t mind owning the resources or hiring programmers and consultants for writing, testing, and maintaining the codes. Since maintaining such a tool will require significant investment, these buyers also have a substantial IT budget. They should opt for a code-based SOAR system that allows them the freedom to create custom codes.

Benefits of SOAR software

The key benefits of using a SOAR software tool include:

• Greater operational efficiency: SOAR software improves the operational efficiency of your security team by centralizing threat monitoring and automating workflows for various processes. It helps your team collect data related to security incidents, collaborate on escalation and review processes, and share threat intelligence across departments. This lowers the chances of missing a threat alert, reduces the security incident response time, and provides your security analysts more time to diagnose the root cause of issues and make improvements.
• Reduced risk: A SOAR platform sends real-time alerts about security incidents and creates automated workflows to escalate incidents to the concerned member or department. This allows your security team to take timely action and ensure immediate threat response. It also helps prioritize breaches or vulnerabilities that pose the greatest security threat.

Market trends to understand

Here’s a recent SOAR software market trend that you should know:

• Increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to identify data anomalies. AI and ML can help SOAR tools analyze the data coming from various security systems in real time to identify suspicious patterns or anomalies. The technology allows the incident response team to operate proactively and detect security incidents even before they take place. It also helps improve the detection of malware, phishing emails, and fraudulent payments, among others.

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Note: The application selected in this article is an example to show a feature in context and is not intended as an endorsement or recommendation. It has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.