The heart of any organizational cybersecurity is the security operations center (SOC). A huge number of alerts reached the analysts, each one containing a possible danger. Now the question is how do they sort out the real alerts, the actual security problem? This is where alert triage and threat hunting step in as a duo.
Before going forward, it’s necessary to understand the SOC alert triage meaning and how it works. Read on!
What Is Alert Triage?
Alert triage is the process of handling the security alerts that come from various tools including firewalls, intrusion detection systems(IDS), and end-point security solutions.
It’s similar to the responder who reaches the emergency scene first and after seeing the scene decides what is most important and what needs attention first and allocates resources based on urgency.
Here is how SOC alert triage works:
- Collection: Alerts from all the security tools are gathered in one place so that the analysts can see everything together
- Investigation: The analyst performed the analysis of the alerts. They check where it came from (server or computer) how serious the alert is (low, medium, high), and what the reason behind getting flagged by the security tool
- Correlation: Analysts search for the connections between alerts. For instance, if someone fails to log in and then strange data starts moving, there is a great chance that it’s a sign of a coordinated attack
- Prioritization: Once alerts are checked, they are prioritized on the base of how urgent they are. The alert that needs to have immediate action comes at the first number, while a less urgent alert waits for its turn
- Resolution(Fixing): According to the type of alert, the analysts respond and start the emergency procedures including, isolating the compromised systems, or fine-tuning security controls to prevent future occurrences
What Is Threat Hunting?
As we know SOC alert triage is necessary for reaching and mitigating the immediate threats. But it’s not enough. It’s like firefighters, they put out the visible flames but what about the hidden embers that can initiate a larger fire after some time?
That’s where threat hunting comes in handy. It is the approach in which the analysts search for hidden threats within the network, systems, and data of the organization.
It’s similar to a detective, who is investigating a crime scene, finding the clues and abnormal meticulous activities that may have bypassed the old security defenses of the organization.
Here’s how it works:
- Hypothesis Development: Analysis creates hypotheses based on current threat intelligence and industry trends about the attack vectors and techniques to guess how attackers might try to break in. They then look for those specific tricks in your systems
- Data Exploration: The analysts use different techniques for exploration such as anomaly detection, threat intelligence correlation, and vulnerability scanning to analyze and check the user logs, network traffic, system events, and other data sources
- Threat Identification: Based on the data analysis, analysts identify potential threats that might not trigger security alerts. This could be a suspicious user accessing sensitive data at unusual times or unauthorized movement within the network
- Investigation and Response: Similar to SOC alert triage, identified threats are investigated further. Analysts gather additional evidence, determine the scope of the compromise, and provide the best response to contain the threat and fix the problem
How Alert Triage and Threat Hunting Collaborate?
Security operations alert triage and threat hunting seem like different processes but they work best when they team up. Let’s take a look at how they help each other:
Alert Triage Informs Threat Hunting:
SOC Alert triage serves as an early warning so that threat hunters can understand what happening in terms of cyber security.
When the threat hunters see a bunch of alerts about similar types of attacks or weaknesses being exploited, it gives a clue about where the attackers are targeting the systems. It helps the team of experts to understand where they need to put their focus.
For example, if a spike in phishing emails comes to notice, it informs the cyber threat hunters that they need to investigate the emails of the organizations and need to emphasize the user awareness training programs.
Threat Hunting Uncovers False Positives:
It is like sending the detectives to look for the trouble. These detectives dig deeper to find the sneaky threats that may have passed from the security measures of the systems.
Cyber threat hunting also helps in spotting false positive alerts that are sometimes raised by the alert system.
Meanwhile, hunting threats can also help in tunning up the alert system so that it only flags up important alerts.
Threat Hunters Use Triage Tools:
The tools that are used in SOC alert triage are also very useful for threat hunters. With the help of these tools and threat-hunting tools, they do their job fast and accurately. This way, they efficiently find and stop the threat before it gets too late and they cause any kind of harm.
So working together on alert triage and threat hunting makes it easy and simpler to catch the threats and mitigate them timely.
Final Words:
In this digital age, just reacting to cyber dangers isn’t enough anymore. By putting alert triage and threat hunting together, SOC analysts can build a really strong defense. SOC alert triage and hunting are very important for keeping a company’s digital stuff safe.
They work to find and deal with potential cyber dangers. The alert triage process prioritizes the security alerts based on urgency while hunting threats means actively searching for the hidden threat that can cause issues later.
With the help of the latest tech tools, SOC teams can handle any kind of cyber threat that they find. The duo of alert triage and threat hunting is necessary to stay ahead of the attackers because they are always using new techniques to break in.
However, this collaboration prevents them from breaking in and accessing the organizational data. Whether it’s jumping into action fast with alert triage or hunting down sneaky threats before they cause trouble, SOC teams also play a vital role in safeguarding businesses against cyber threats.
