Keeping up with the evolving threat landscape is difficult and organizations face several challenges such as the cyber skills shortage and managing the security tools in their infrastructure. The more security tools an organization implements, the more security alerts a security operations centre (SOC) has to investigate. Each of these security alerts need to be analyzed, investigated and remediated. However, research from the Neustar International Security Council (NISC) found that 26% of security alerts are false positives. To eliminate the number of false positives and keep up with attackers, combining artificial intelligence tools with a SOC’s expertise is crucial.

Source: ZDNet

Improving Threat Intelligence and Detection

The longer a threat goes undetected, the more damage can be inflicted. Hackers have more time to steal sensitive data or gather intelligence for future attacks. Detecting a threat as soon as possible is crucial in reducing the impact of a breach. However, threats are constantly evolving, and new vulnerabilities and attack vectors are being discovered daily.

To effectively detect threats, security analysts must have access to the latest threat intelligence data. This can be done through threat intelligence feeds. Threat intelligence feeds provide information on cyber threats and risks, which gives security analysts a real time view of the external threat landscape. Threat intelligence feeds are usually integrated with a tool like security information and event management (SIEM), which has AI capabilities. Since SIEM analyzes data from all the devices in a network and correlates that information with data from threat intelligence feeds, it can identify potential threats more quickly. The data from threat intelligence feeds provide security analysts with context to inform their decisions for responding to threats. This enables them to respond more quickly and do their work more efficiently.

Increased Productivity

Investigating several security alerts per day can burden a SOC team. The number of alerts makes it difficult for security analysts to prioritize alerts to investigate, which can allow critical alerts to slip through. Furthermore, dealing with false positives makes it harder for analysts. False positives are alerts that indicate a threat is happening when in reality there is no threat. Dealing with false positives can slow down an analyst’s ability to determine threats, which can also lead them to miss real critical alerts.

Manually investigating security incidents is a time-consuming process. Security analysts have to collect information from the network and correlate that information to gain context and determine the severity of an incident. SIEM makes it easier for security analysts to investigate threats. SIEM automates the process of gathering information and consolidating and analyzing data. When critical security alerts are identified, a security analyst is notified and will start investigating the issue. Leveraging artificial intelligence ensures that analyst skills are being used to identify real and serious threats and reduces the number of false positives they encounter.

Using a Hybrid Intelligence Platform

Implementing a SOC in-house is an expensive investment. The cost of hiring security personnel, buying security tools and licenses and paying for continued security training can end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Furthermore, the cybersecurity skills shortage makes it more difficult for organizations to find qualified applicants. Fortunately, organizations can outsource a SOC to a service provider like Jolera to ensure their organization is protected.

Jolera combines the security expertise of a SOC with intelligent analytics from SIEM through its hybrid intelligence platform. Under our hybrid intelligence platform, human and machine intelligence merge with proprietary technology to help manage and secure an organization’s environment. Our SIEM system picks up emerging threats and eliminates false positives while our security analysts investigate and remediate security incidents. We then generate a report on an organization’s infrastructure allow you to gain actionable insights to help guide their security posture and investments. For more information on our hybrid intelligence platform, contact us today.