What is automated incident response?
Often referred to in the security industry as SOAR (security orchestration and response) automated incident response is a process that describes the convergence of three distinct technology markets: automation, security incident response and threat intelligence.
The purpose of automated incident response is to aid security teams in managing and responding to the endless alarms that are received, but at machine speeds. SOAR platforms take things a step further than basic incident response by combining data gathering, case management, standardisation, workflow and analytics to ensure that organisations have the ability to respond to critical incidents at speed and at pace.
Implementation of automated incident response
As with all security tools, automated incident response is not a set and forget operation. There are always new systems to integrate, data feeds to ingest, processes to update and tools to tweak for performance. If an automated incident response capability is neglected, organisations risk falling behind, their responses will outdate the threats and the response mechanisms around automation will prevent them from stopping adversaries, making their responses and investment worthless.
Traditionally, both the in-house IT security and SOC teams are responsible for configuring and adopting these technologies. The experts that make up a SOC team are well-trained to recognise which processes and responses can be automated and how automation can save time, effort and money.
Benefits of automated incident response
There are essentially eight main benefits to an organisation of a comprehensive automated incident response assault program.
- faster response times
- optimised threat intelligence
- reduced manual operations and standardisation of processes
- streamlined operations
- reduced cyber security impact
- easy technology and tools integration
- lowered costs, and
- automated reporting and metrics capabilities.