The world is increasingly embracing cloud technology. The fact that cloud requires minimal infrastructure and operational costs is attracting enterprises to shift to cloud. Remote and hybrid work modes following the pandemic has added to the continued rise of cloud.
In an attempt to offer analysis and forecast the year’s progress in cloud security, we conducted a survey. We reached out to more than 500 IT professionals working in various industries from the United States. According to our Cloud Security Outlook 2023 report, 72% of the surveyed organizations use multi-cloud applications, 5% of the organizations deployed a hybrid-cloud system, and 23% are planning to move to cloud within the next couple of years. None of the respondents indicated that they didn’t have plans to move to the cloud.
The rapid cloud adoption has widened the scope for cyberattacks. It is now imperative that all the organizations keep their defense ready to avoid security breaches and ensure cloud security. This is where security operations centers (SOCs) come into the picture.
Leading the way to protect your enterprise
A SOC is a centralized division within an organization that uses a team of security experts and technology together to prevent, detect, analyze, and respond to cybersecurity incidents. It serves as the point of connection for all the events recorded within an organization and decides on how to handle and respond to each of these events.
SOCs take the responsibility of:
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Log management: SOCs are in charge of compiling, keeping track of, and frequently analyzing the log data from network devices. This information can identify threats, establish a benchmark for normal network behavior, and be used for investigation and recovery in the event of a security breach.
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Compliance: While many of the SOC’s procedures follow recognized guidelines, others are constrained by legal requirements. SOCs are in charge of conducting periodic system audits to check for compliance with these rules, which may be set by their organization, or regulatory bodies.
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Incident recovery and remediation: SOCs work to restore networks and recover any lost or compromised data after a breach.
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Alert ranking: SOCs are in charge of carefully reviewing all warnings generated by monitoring tools, eliminating false positives (if any), and figuring out how aggressive real threats are and what they might be aiming for.
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Continuous monitoring: Security teams must always stay one step ahead of attackers. SOCs have the best chance to prevent an attack by being instantly informed of emerging threats. This requires round-the-clock monitoring of the network.
Rapid reaction time reduces the possible costs that a security breach may generate, which helps minimize downtime in the event of a breach, limiting further losses. SOCs help organizations stay proactive. However, many organizations in the present day do not have a dedicated SOC due to budgeting issues and a shortage of skilled professionals. Some enterprises outsource their security operations to a third-party vendor instead of building their own SOC.
In the Cloud Security Outlook 2023 report, we observed that 14% of the surveyed companies have a SOC with more than five security experts. Six percent of them lack dedicated security analysts, while 2% outsource the job. Seventy-seven percent of the surveyed organizations had a security team constituting 3-5 experts.
Do small enterprises need a SOC?
The need for a dedicated SOC is crucial for every organization, irrespective of the size or domain. Enterprises should have a security operations center to ensure high security standards. However, the size of it can vary depending on a variety of factors such as the organization’s industry, risk profile, and IT infrastructure complexity.
The market landscape of a security solution
A SOC would need both security experts and supporting technological solutions. To understand the security strategy used by different organizations, our questions focused on the security solutions they currently use. Eighty-two percent are using a SIEM solution, while 79% and 61% are using DLP and EDR solutions respectively. This indicates that the organizations are using different security tools to cover various aspects of their security like data protection, adherence to compliance, gaining visibility into activities in cloud platform, etc.
When asked if they would be interested in evaluating a solution that can address all functions from a single console, 96% of the respondents said yes. This implies that enterprises are now looking for unified security solutions to secure their networks. One such solution is ManageEngine’s Log360. Even for organizations that already have a SOC, Log360 can aid their battle against security threats.
Concluding
Cloud Security Outlook 2023 attempts to keep stakeholders informed about the changing cloud security landscape. It throws light on the need to have a strong security team and relevant technologies in place to guarantee the highest level of security, particularly in the rapidly evolving world of threats and hacking.
Organizations cannot just leave their data security up to chance. Maintaining an SOC would be the best practice for an enterprise to present itself as a safe one that puts security first. Knowing that a whole team is prepared to assist the enterprise with any possible security need helps employees feel more confident in their ability to carry out everyday tasks. SOCs help enterprises in cost saving and earning customer’s trust, which can ultimately lead to better business.
Check out the complete Cloud Security Outlook report to better understand the evolving cloud security landscape.
