Five Questions to Ask Your SOCaaS Provider

In the present time, almost anything can be done online, including shopping, availing of services, and banking. With the advancement of technology, many businesses have put up their websites to be able to reach more customers easily or work together more efficiently. However, along with this is also the increase in cybersecurity threats. Therefore, if you are a business owner, you need to consider how much your entire company could be reliant upon the web. It’s because in the modern age, looking after your data is one of the most essential practices that a business can implement.

If you are aware of the constant increase of cybercrime, you may be considering setting up a security operations center or SOC. You have the option to set it up in-house if you wish to manage all of your data and security from the office. But you can also find many opportunities to outsource this to SOC as a service or SOCaaS companies. Just remember that when hiring one, it is very important to find a SOCaaS provider like the Clearnetwork team that you can trust.

Before you hire a SOCaaS provider, there are important things that you need to know first to find the perfect one for your company or business. To help you, here are five questions to ask your SOCaaS provider.

1. What are the security solutions that you can offer?

Email and web services are the common attack routes of choice among cybercriminals. But aside from these, your SOCaaS provider should be able to do more than secure these areas. Make sure that you find one that also focuses on database and endpoint security. Many cybercriminals today understand that the modern enterprise is multifaceted, and they use this to their advantage to break into the database, which is the center of data storage. 

When you find a high-quality and reliable SOCaaS provider, they can help you protect your database. In addition to that, they can also solve challenges that come with the increasing number of endpoints and vulnerabilities that can be found within the systems and applications that you are currently managing.

2. How competent are your staff members?

When hiring a SOCaaS provider, it is also important that you ask about the credentials of the people who are going to be assigned to monitor your systems every day. Make sure that you ask if their security analysts and consultants have advanced security certifications like QSAs, CISSPs, or SANS. You should also know how long they have been responding to cybersecurity incidents. The best SOCaaS provider should have expert staff members that have years of experience.

3. Are you an MSSP, an MDR, or both?

If the SOCaaS provider is a managed security system provider or MSSP, they will run updates, install patches, distribute outlines, and give outsourced monitoring and management of your networks. To be able to navigate the threat landscape today, your SOCaaS should go much further than those steps. However, most MSSPs are unable to analyze the large number of log sources needed to detect threats effectively and respond correctly. 

Therefore, an ideal SOCaaS provider is one that combines MSSP capabilities with machine learning, cloud technology, and big data, which can be done by Managed Detection and Response or MDR providers. This way, they will be able to discover previously unknown weaknesses in your system and kill threats that exist on your network.

Try to look for a SOCaaS provider that combines process, people, and technology when responding to threats. One that can offer you full investigations and incident response services that can identify the cause and degree of a breach in just a few minutes.  

4. Can you handle my existing technologies?

In addition to delivering and managing their technologies, the best SOCaaS providers also partner with other reliable technology providers to make your tasks easier. They can unify your current security applications by monitoring and managing many widely used technologies. This will also eliminate the need to remove and replace older systems. 

Instead of forcing you to start from scratch using new and expensive operations, they can build a strategy for you that connects products from different vendors acquired over time. If this is done correctly, a unified defense included in legacy systems can give a strong security solution and a practical alternative to removing previous products. 

When you find a SOCaaS provider that understands the intricacies of your business and knows your incident response playbook, it will result in a program that will truly support your needs. In addition to seamless implementation, they should also offer ongoing maintenance and service delivery during the whole security life cycle.

5. Can you provide me a detailed explanation of your response process in case a security incident occurs?

The best SOCaaS providers are those that can give you the information in real-time using different points of contact, such as through chat and on the phone. Also, since many of the chief security offices of companies are always traveling, there are many providers out there that offer mobile apps, allowing clients to review incident details via their different devices anytime.

These are the five important questions that you should ask your SOCaaS provider. Always remember to keep these questions in mind when meeting with a potential security advisor. We hope that these will help you in determining your company’s future SOCaaS provider.