The document discusses the importance of security automation for security operations teams, highlighting various triggers such as significant breaches, slipping incident response times, and the inefficiency of manual processes. It emphasizes that implementing security automation can enhance efficiency, prioritize critical responses, and improve team culture. Ultimately, organizations facing multiple challenges in cybersecurity should consider automation to optimize their operations and reduce costs.

1. Should You Be Automating?

2. Introduction
What drives security operations teams to begin the journey to security
automation differs for each SOC, whether it’s a staffing shortage or the
inefficiency that results from manual processes.
Check out our list of 6 true or false statements below, all of which are
common triggers for implementing a security automation solution. If you
answer “true” to any of the items below, now may just be the time to start
automating.

3. Experienced a Significant Breach
Have you suffered a significant cybersecurity breach recently? It happens. In
fact, it happened more than 1,500 times in 2017 in the U.S. alone. But
continuing to do the same things you have always done even after a significant
breach is far too common. Understanding why a breach happened is part of
the investigative process and is vital to guarding your organization against
similar incidents in the future. Security automation platforms help speed
up the investigation process and can help you automate responses to known
threats before they can cause damage to your organization.

4. Incident Response Time is Slipping
Have your incident response time numbers been slipping? As cybersecurity
teams deal with an increasing number of systems, networks, and threats, they
naturally find it more difficult to deal with these issues in the same amount of
time as they once did. Security automation can help teams identify the most
pressing issues, adequately prioritize responses and make it easy for new
employees to get up to speed quickly.

5. Threats Slip Through the Cracks
Even if a threat did not end up causing significant damage, having threats slip
through unaddressed can be a sign of issues in your processes. Typically, this is
a byproduct of having more alerts triggered than can be reasonably addressed
in a timely manner. Security automation tools can help by automating the
response to certain alerts so analysts are free to spend time on the alerts that
truly need their attention. As a bonus, some security automation platforms
also have security orchestration capabilities that add even more efficiency by
enabling the management of a variety of security tools.

6. Reduce Your Security Budget
Organizations still running their security operations exclusively from SIEM
are likely overspending on manpower. Salaries in the cybersecurity industry
are expected to increase by 7% in 2018. Security automation platforms make
your existing staff more efficient by reducing false positives so security analysts
can handle the most pressing issues. An investment in security automation can
save your business significant money for years to come by maximizing
manpower and the investment you’ve made in your security tools.

7. SOC Requires Better Organization
Despite significant investments in technology, SOCs are notorious for relying
on manual processes when it comes to incident investigation and response.
This often leaves security analysts to their own devices as they work to triage
and resolve security events. Security automation necessitates getting your
processes in order in order to take full advantage of its benefits. In that light,
security automation tools can be the push that teams need to get their day-to-
day processes in order so they are predictable and repeatable.

8. Culture within Your SOC Team
Do you find that your security team culture is suffering? Is bickering between
team members and management becoming more commonplace? In most
organizations, the number of systems and platforms that a cybersecurity team
must protect continues to grow. An investment in better monitoring and
investigation tools not only helps to make your team more effective, it reduces
their workload and improves SOC team culture simultaneously.

9. Conclusion
So, how did you do? Answering “true” to two or more of the items above
means now is the time to start investigating how you can start reaping the
benefits of security automation to improve the overall efficiency, efficacy, and
culture of your security operations.