What is SecOps (Security Operations)?

Cyberattacks are progressively rising as the world continuously advances towards digitizing and online solutions. The complexity and sophistication of these cyber-attacks are eliciting businesses to implement the right intelligence and the need for a security operations team. These highly skilled teams make sure to protect the companies against breaches and help mitigate security risks. In today's modern and digital work environments, relying on a reactive posture is insufficient; organizations must adopt a proactive model to remain afloat and maintain their security. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime costs are expected to grow to a whopping US $10.5 trillion in 2025. This staggering figure necessitates the entrance of Security Operations (SecOps).

What is SecOps?

SecOps is an approach that combines security teams and IT operations teams into a single, unified team. This collaboration combines processes and tools from both teams to monitor and assess risks, managing reactive and proactive responses to security events and incidents. Organizations can appropriately safeguard their digital assets and infrastructure by improving communication and collaboration between these two distinct departments. SecOps means meeting an organization's security goal without compromising any IT performance.

According to a report published by IBM, US $4.88 million is the average cost of a data breach in 2024, the all-time highest recorded.

Why SecOps is Important?

Modern-day organizations are highly reliant on technology and digitally transform their businesses and daily operations beyond boundaries. Cloud environments are becoming first-choice destinations where the threat and attack landscape is broad and highly dynamic. Legacy security tools and practices are rendered ineffective in front of modern-day attacks. Consequently, it is a must-to-have critical and robust cloud security practices in place to protect an organization's digital assets.

Fortinet’s 2023 global ransomware report mentions that 78% of organizations believe they are prepared to mitigate an attack, while 50% still fell victim to ransomware attacks last year.

Let us explore some key reasons that necessitate businesses to opt for SecOps:

1. Superior Incident Response: A lucid SecOps framework can aid organizations in responding to security incidents in ultra real-time while ensuring no disruption or downtime is affecting the business.
2. Enhanced Operational Efficacy: The collaboration between IT and security teams helps streamline processes, cross-share knowledge, and allow better decisions to be made together to enhance overall organizational efficacy.
3. Legacy to Cloud/Distributed Transition: Traditional IT-based environments are increasingly transitioning to cloud or distributed environments based on business needs and requirements. This switch increases the vulnerability of networks outside the organization’s boundaries to external attacks, making many confidential resources accessible to the public by default.
4. Improved Compliance: The SecOps team ensures that the organization adheres to the highest level of regulatory and industry requirements and standards. This adherence reduces the risks of hefty fines, safeguarding customer trust and minimizing damage.
5. Prioritizing Security: The DevOps team focuses on speed and may neglect security in software development. The SecOps team prioritizes security from scratch and ensures speed and security simultaneously. This approach puts security at the forefront.

Security Ops is founded on the idea of integrating security into every aspect of the organization’s daily operations. These operations include threat detection, network monitoring, state-of-the-art incident response, and real-time risk mitigation and vulnerability management. By fostering collaboration between IT and security, SecOps aims to create an environment where efficiency, security, and resiliency are deeply built-in.

Goals of Security Operations

The ultimate goal of SecOps is to improve an organization’s security posture, which results in fewer breaches, fewer vulnerabilities, and fewer distractions. At the same time, it facilitates a unified approach to security across all departments of an organization. This approach, when in practice, ensures that the security features can be built from the early development phase of any organization’s operation or application. With an increased priority on efficient security from day one, SecOps Teams are capable of streamlining processes and managing priorities in a better way. All of this means identifying threats earlier, reducing the risk of breaches, and maintaining business continuity and operations.

The top goals of implementing SecOps are:

1. Cost Saving: Cost is always a deciding factor for any organization. By investing in proactive security through SecOps, organizations can save significantly by preventing cyberattacks and high-fidelity data breaches. The upfront investment in security is far less than the financial damage and loss of reputation that may result from security incidents.
2. Business Continuity: A well-implemented SecOps ensures reduced security incidents and minimized damage impact if an incident occurs. This helps uninterrupted business operations while maintaining productivity, revenue generation, and customer satisfaction.
3. Customer Trust: By fostering and demonstrating an organization’s commitment to security solutions, SecOps enhances trust and confidence among customers, stakeholders, and internal employees.
4. Respond Faster: SecOps teams have a centralized, complete view of the entire operational infrastructure that updates in ultra-real time from a security standpoint across all locations. This highly advanced visibility allows an organization to detect, thwart, and mitigate any issues before they become disastrous.
5. Reduced Downtime: Security incidents can be detected quickly due to highly advanced SecOps tools and frameworks. This enables immediate mitigation to prevent potential loss resulting from an incident. The reduced timeframe between attack detection and mitigation allows organizations to significantly minimize overall downtime and continue business operations.

Key Components of Security Operations

The three main components of SecOps are:

1. People
2. Process
3. Technology

With access to top talent, well-established processes, and the latest technology, Security Ops can only then enhance an organization’s security posture by complete means. These three components are fully dependent on each other. The weakness of one component can result in the failure of overall security operations.

Once these three main components are intertwined, the following are the remaining sub-components of SecOps:

1. Complete Visualization: Developing a complete visual representation of an organization’s security landscape to identify potential vulnerabilities and threats early.
2. Mission-Critical Prioritization: Diverging focus on critical assets and high-risk zones first ensures that an organization addresses significant threats promptly.
3. Informed Decisions: Construct data-driven decisions by staying informed through continuous monitoring, 24/7 access to threat intelligence, and frequent security assessments.
4. Uninterrupted Integration: Seamlessly incorporating security tools and practices into the organization's existing IT infrastructure to improve overall security without interrupting operations.
5. Utilize Automation: Employing automation in repetitive and monotonous security tasks to enhance efficacy and minimize the potential for any human error.

Building efficient security operations is not a one-day process but an ongoing process that keeps evolving and improving.

SecOps Tools

A well-implemented SecOps comprises several tools that work to create a secure and efficient environment. The following table outlines the critical tools of a practical SecOps framework:

SecOps vs. DevOps vs. DevSecOps

Let us first understand the three-letter acronyms before diving deep into the differences and commonalities between these terms.

• Dev stands for development.
• Sec stands for security.
• Ops stands for operations.

DevOps prioritizes speed and performance. SecOps prioritizes security. And DevSecOps is a unification of both.

The following table further highlights the differences between the three terms from various aspects:

SecOps vs. SOC

SOC stands for Security Operations Center, and SecOps is a subset of SOC processes. In the past, SOCs were entirely isolated from the rest of the organization and operated on their specific duties without much interaction with other business parts. Modern-day SOCs differ as security is a joint effort, and organizations must embrace the idea.

Following are some different types of SOCs:

1. In-house SOC: A kind where SOC analysts oversee security activities from a physical location with on-site staff.
2. Out-sourced SOC: A SOC managed by an external security service provider that offers services based on business demands and nature.
3. Hybrid SOC: A hybrid SOC combines internal and external teams. Internal SecOps teams can receive further assistance from the MSSP without hiring more internal staff.
4. Virtual SOC: As the name implies, this type of SOC operates on AI and automation-based procedural standards and security parameters. No on-site help is provided in this case.

While SecOps and SOC are both distinct concepts, they are complementary and work in tandem to enhance an organization's security posture. SecOps integrates security into all aspects of operation with IT team teams. The SOC is a specialized unit that oversees the implementation of security frameworks and serves as a frontline defense against cyber-attacks, operating around the clock 24/7.

Together, they create a comprehensive top-to-bottom approach to cybersecurity threats that is not only reactive but also highly vigilant and proactive at the same time.

Challenges in implementing SecOps

• Talent Gap: There is a considerable shortfall in the number of talented IT security professionals around the globe who are needed to fill the existing cybersecurity vacancies. This challenge drives overwhelmingness to the existing SecOps team members.
• Colossal Data and Network Traffic: Modern-day data and network traffic have increased exponentially; with such astounding growth in volume, analyzing all this information in real-time is challenging.
• Alert Fatigue: SecOps and SOC rely on automated filtering tools and systems. In many of these tools and systems, anomalies occur with some regularity. With unfiltered anomaly alerts, systems can generate false positive voluminous alerts that can be overwhelming to interpret.
• Unknown Threats: No matter how much an organization invests in security, there are still unknown threats to consider. Zero-day exploits can still breach an organization's security defenses even with conventional signature-based detection, endpoint security, and firewalls.

Sangfor Security Operations (SecOps) Solution

As a leading provider of security services, Sangfor offers two comprehensive solutions for enhancing SecOps' capability compared to traditional practices.

Let us delve into both to understand better:

1. Sangfor's Self-Managed SecOps Solution with Cyber Command

The solution enhances network security through advanced detection and response capabilities. Sangfor Cyber Command is a Network Detection and Response (NDR) solution that collects data from various sources in real-time to provide contextual information for security events. It offers end-to-end network visibility by monitoring both North-to-South and East-to-West traffic. The solution leverages artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning technologies to detect threats with high precision, helping security teams make informed decisions and significantly reduce the time and effort spent on investigations.

2. Sangfor Cyber Guardian MDR Managed SecOps solution

Sangfor Cyber Guardian solution offers a fully managed security service that provides 24/7 real-time threat monitoring and response to protect against cyberattacks. It's delivered by Sangfor's in-house security experts in offensive and defensive security paradigms.

The solution combines several following critical components:

• Cyber Guardian MDR
• Network Secure
• IAG (Internet Access Gateway)
• Endpoint Secure
• Cyber Command

Key benefits of utilizing Cyber Guardian MDR service include:

• Cost-saving SecOps: Implementing Sangfor’s in-house solution saves 75% in budget costs compared to building your SecOps from the ground up.
• Hands-off & Worry-Free: Specifically curated and designed for organizations that prefer simplicity and want seasoned security analysts to manage reports and handle issues on their behalf.
• Relevance: Offers tailored threat analysis and response strategies that align with specific business goals and requirements.

Unlock the full potential of this topic by watching Sangfor’s exclusive webinar recording or contacting us for value-packed information!

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