Is it about the change or the pace of change while designing a new-age and future-ready Security Operations Center (SOC)?

We asked this question to several CISOs and SOC managers over the last few months, and most of the answers tilted towards pace of change, which can help reduce the MTTD (Mean Time to Detect) and MTTR (Mean Time to Remediate) with the help of AI-based prioritization, validation, and mobilization. This is due to emerging AI-driven sophisticated threats and the ever-evolving business environment and threat landscape.

The modern SOCs are undergoing transformation, and future-ready / next-gen SOCs must evolve into intelligent, autonomous, vendor-agnostic, and highly integrated command and control centers. Organizations must look at architecting SOCs that are not only resilient but preemptive, AI-ready, defensive, and helps neutralize threats proactively.

Key pillars while designing a future-ready SOC or evaluating a Management Security Service Provider (MSSP)

1. AI-Driven Threat Detection and Response
   • Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) enable real-time threat detection, anomaly spotting, and predictive analytics.
   • AI reduces alert fatigue, helps prioritize, and efficiently execute remediation steps.
   • AI-powered SOCs can help detect zero-day threats, insider attacks, and advanced persistent threats (APTs) through behavioural analysis.
2. Threat-Informed Defense (TID) and Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)
   • The CTEM program represents a paradigm shift from periodic assessments to ongoing, dynamic exposure management.
   • Integration of assets, threats, and vulnerability data seamlessly helps quick identification of critical exposure gaps.
   • A robust CTEM program leverages AI and automation to simulate attacks, assess control effectiveness, and provide real-time, data-driven insights for risk mitigation and quantification.
   • Integrated TID, CTEM, SIEM and SOAR platforms enhances detection, prioritization, validation, remediation, and mobilization, and provides comprehensive visibility and a single pane of glass view to the CISO organization.
3. Operationalizing Threat Intelligence
   • AI-enabled data ingestion pipeline helps SOC teams transform raw, unstructured threat intelligence into structured and actionable threat intelligence.
   • This helps find top choke points and prioritize exposures based on real-world attack likelihood, asset criticality, and emerging threats.
   • Helps capitalize on threat intelligence service and bring the TCO down.
   • Consolidate multiple threat intelligence sources and feeds in a centralized location to bridge the gap between intelligence production and security operations.
4. Risk and Compliance Assurance
   • Automated compliance checks against frameworks like NIST, ISO, DORA, etc, should be embedded in SOC workflows, ensuring continuous alignment with regulatory compliance.
   • AI-driven policy enforcement and audit trails simplify governance, risk, and compliance.
   • Gain insights into the current risk profile and define the target risk profile by systematically visualising the security program on Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover functions.
   • Association of security tools and products with compliance and controls definitions to gain insights and remediation playbooks to implement policies, procedures, and controls for increased efficiencies.
5. Advanced Threat Hunting and Detection Engineering
   • AI-driven and SIEM agnostic threat hunting empowers SOC analysts to proactively identify hidden threats and their pattern recognition.
   • AI-driven and SIEM-agnostic detection engineering enhanced by machine learning helps in continuously refining detection logic based on evolving TTPs.
   • Accelerate threat detection and hunting by combining real-time threat intelligence with detection analytics mapped to MITRE ATT&CK.
   • Corelate global threat feeds with your environment’s telemetry, surfacing high-fidelity alerts and enabling analysts to hunt threats with precision.
   • Helps in early threat identification, reducing dwell time, improved detection logics, threat intelligence validation, threat mapping, and threat modelling.
6. Seamless Red/Blue/Purple Teaming
   • Simulate or emulate to test defence and attack scenarios, powered by automation, testing the resilience of security controls and identifying gaps before adversaries exploit them.
   • These simulations or emulations help detection engineers in efficient controls remediation strategies.
   • MITRE ATT&CK-aligned workflows help and empower security teams to prioritize, simulate, detect, and respond with precision.
   • Conducting and tracking purple teaming helps the RED teams curate a scenario, and the BLUE team can monitor, detect, and respond to the threats in real time.
   • Gain central visibility into relevant threats and identify top controls to implement.
7. Controls Prioritization, Remediation, and Mobilization
   • AI-driven assessment of vulnerabilities by exploitability, asset importance, and threat context, ensuring remediation efforts are focused on top risks.
   • Automated playbooks enable rapid mobilization and consistent remediation actions, bringing down the Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR).
   • Consolidation of SOC tools and use of vendor agnostic platforms helps—integrating detection, response, threat intelligence, and compliance—reduces complexity and improves operational efficiency by facilitating collaboration between ITOps, SecOps, and GRC teams to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

The Future Ahead for Organizations and MSSPs: Building the Intelligent, Next-gen SOC

As AI and automation continue to mature, future-ready SOCs will leverage more and more preemptive security solutions and shift from reactive to proactive defense. Risk management and its quantification, anticipating threats before they materialize and orchestrating responses at machine speed will become the key differentiators.

Key Takeaways:

• AI-native solutions are indispensable for scaling threat detection, response, and compliance in an era of relentless cyber risks and an ever-evolving threat landscape.
• Continuous monitoring and CTEM deliver real-time situational awareness and adaptive risk management, and risk quantification.
• Operationalizing threat intelligence, AI-driven advanced threat hunting, detection engineering, and threat emulations helps build a strong threat informed defense, ensure a proactive security posture and capitalize on services and subscriptions.
• Controls prioritization, remediation, and tool consolidation drive efficiency and resilience.

Author: Manuj Kumar, Co-founder and CRO, Gambit Cyber B.V.