How To Prevent Costly Data Breaches By Using A Security Operations Center

Data breaches. These two simple words can send chills down the spine of even the most committed data analysts. IT departments everywhere are terrified at the possibility of a data breach attacking their organization (okay, that’s a bit of hyperbole, but it’s a significant issue when you get the point). The organization’s leaders lay awake at night, hoping one of these horrible breaches doesn’t occur.

T-mobile, Target, Equifax, the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, and other large companies have all suffered data breaches over the past few years. Each of these has negatively affected consumers, the organization’s reputation, and operations across the board. Your organization should prepare for the inevitability of a data breach attempt occurring at some point. To do this effectively, you need a strong team of experts to help monitor such issues and powerful software to assist them. This is where the security operations center comes into play. The security operations center, or SOC, is an invaluable aspect of any organization. Here’s how it can help you prevent costly data breaches at your company.

The Role of the SOC

Although many organizations probably don’t think about their IT department or infrastructure much day-to-day, they play a pivotal role in ensuring the company stays protected. The security operations center (better known as the SOC) is one of the most critical teams responsible for these duties. SOCs use a mix of experts, machine learning/AI tools, knowledge, and other tools to help organizations be proactive and stay ahead of cybersecurity threats. They’re also adept and responsible for monitoring logs, analyzing files, and checking for hazards. They respond to incidents and assist with recovering them (and setting policies to ensure they don’t occur again). The SOC is also primarily responsible for compliance, which is an incredibly complex task in and of itself for any organization.

Data Breach Costs

Data breaches aren’t just bad for a company’s bottom line. They can negatively affect reputation, future business, customers, and investors. They’re expensive. They’re disruptive. And they can eventually lead to operational issues. According to IBM’s Cost of Data Breach report from last year (2022), the cumulative global cost of data breaches increased from 2021 to approximately $4.24 million per incident. This problem is partly related to poor cybersecurity practices, lousy/easily cracked passwords, and migrating large amounts of data to the cloud. Things were only exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic when remote work became a norm for larger companies. The cost risks associated with the data breach are so high it behooves any company to find the best ways to prevent, mitigate, and recover from them when they occur.

Insider Threats

Despite a company’s best intentions and cybersecurity practices, specific threats can happen unexpectedly. One major issue—something that has been known to cause problems at organizations. Insider threats are a prevalent problem nowadays. Fortunately, a SOC can proactively monitor for such threats and help prevent them using customized dashboards and real-time utilities. Using a define, detect, identify, assess, and manage model, an organization can stay on top of insider threats. This methodology can help organizations effectively monitor employee activities and address potential threats before they can transform into costly—and damaging—data breaches.

Using An SOC Solution

A security operations center solution works best when an organization has a centralized team of experts working alongside a powerful security operations center solution. Think of it as a SOC-as-a-service type of solution. With such a solution, you can ensure high visibility into what’s happening with your data at any given time. This includes while it’s being uploaded or stored in the cloud, and in hybrid cloud frameworks. Such solutions can also aid in cloud compliance efforts, securing native cloud apps and customizing their results/operations directly to a particular organization’s needs.

Set Up Your SOC Today

Today, cybersecurity is one of the most critical components of running any organization. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business, well-established, or a significant enterprise. Having a strong security operations center and robust cybersecurity protocols is pretty much essential these days. With new technological developments happening daily, the proliferation of new slash more powerful ai systems, and the threat actors looking to exploit the systems, there’s no reason to wait to establish such a critical area for your business. Start by seeking the best SOC as a service solution, assembling a team of experts, and reinforcing cybersecurity practices throughout the organization. In doing so, you’ll ensure your company’s data remains safe, your security teams can do their jobs well, and your customers—not to mention the rest of your business—are better protected from some of today’s most prevalent threats.