Security, Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) is still a foreign concept to some but has rapidly evolved into a necessity for high-performing SOCs. SOCs without a SOAR — or without meaningful automation — will struggle with manual repetition, duplicate alerts, and slow response times as they scale. With SOAR, many of these problems can be addressed or reduced.
While SOAR isn’t a “silver bullet” by any means, the operational impacts are real because of the power it gives a SOC to optimize workflows, centralize security alert management, and minimize threat response time (or mean time to resolution). According to the Ponemon Institute, organizations can receive on average upwards of 17,000 malware alerts per week. The BHIS Active SOC reduced overall ticket volume by roughly 60% through intelligent alert grouping — consolidating related signals into single cases instead of working them as individual alerts.
To understand how this is possible, we need to discuss what SOAR is and how it works. A SOAR is a platform specialized primarily around security use cases. This platform serves as a centralized hub for data enrichment, integrations, and response actions, all of which take place in the context of “playbooks.” Think of a playbook as a flowchart, where each step performs a specific operation.
At the top of the flowchart, data (let’s say an EDR alert) initially enters the playbook. As it continues, decision points control the directional flow, API requests gather additional data or perform actions, and finally, there is some sort of output. So, a SOAR is really a technology—a curated set of tools and processes that work together to automate what can be wisely automated so as to serve as a happy medium between total manual management and total automation to maximize a SOC team’s ability to respond quickly and appropriately despite the problems and time constraints that the team encounters due to sheer volume.
Consider a real-world example: Suppose that a device triggers a low-confidence EDR alert. Since it’s low-confidence, the EDR doesn’t take any action and sends it to the SOAR. The SOAR makes an API call out to VirusTotal (a service for detecting malware) with the indicators of compromise (IOCs) of the alert. If the IOCs return as malicious, the SOAR reaches back to the EDR, which in turn, isolates the host.
Now let’s say that this EDR alert fired 100 times, each on a different signature, all on the same host. Let’s also say that network detections for Command and Control also started firing related to that user. With a SOAR, all of those disparate signals could be condensed into one singular Case, rather than a number of individual alerts. Using logic within your SOAR playbooks, you could group all these events together based on numerous field values, going a layer deeper than you normally could with a SIEM, which usually just allows for the suppression of duplicates.
Now that you understand the potential power of a SOAR, you might be asking, “Hayden, why isn’t everyone using a SOAR then?” There are a few good reasons for that:
It may sound like I’m trying to convince you that a SOAR isn’t worth the effort, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. On the contrary, SOAR is becoming an expectation for any high-performing SOC, rather than a nice-to-have. As volume and complexity of alerts increase, a SOAR becomes essential to respond quickly and adequately to these alerts.
In recent years, the landscape of cyber scams has evolved, targeting even the tools designed to protect consumers. One such concerning development involves the exploitation of trusted services to mislead and scam users. This article explores a specific case in which scammers may have taken advantage of these services to deceive users into divulging sensitive information, leading to potential financial losses and identity theft.
At the core of this issue lies a highly sophisticated cyber scam that exploits the trust consumers place in services that were designed to alert users regarding suspicious activities or data breaches. In this case, however, scammers have managed to breach the very systems intended to safeguard user identities. Here’s how the scam operates:
Several red flags were identified during the investigation into these compromised alerts:
The consequences of this scam could be far-reaching:
At Constella Intelligence, we’ve recognized the growing sophistication of scams targeting identity protection services and have implemented advanced mechanisms to safeguard our users.
Our systems incorporate a robust verification and curation process, designed to detect and mitigate these types of fraudulent attacks before they reach our customers. In line with the rigorous standards we detail in our blog Verifying the National Public Data Breach, we employ advanced data validation and monitoring techniques to ensure every alert is legitimate and free from manipulation. By continuously monitoring for suspicious patterns and ensuring that all alerts are authentic, we provide the most secure identity protection available on the market. As the leading identity protection provider, we’re committed to staying ahead of emerging threats and maintaining the trust our users place in us to protect their personal information.
To safeguard against potential scams and enhance online security, consider the following steps:
By following these recommendations, users can better protect themselves from the increasingly sophisticated tactics employed by scammers to exploit even the most trusted services.
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