What is the Security Operation Center (SOC). The cyber threat control center?

Redazione RHC : 24 July 2025 18:52

Have you ever heard of the Security Operation Center, or SOC? What exactly is it? Cyber threats are always lurking, ready to exploit any weakness in organizations’ systems and put data, intellectual property, and ICT infrastructure at risk, as well as causing direct reputational damage.

To address this growing challenge, a crucial element comes into play: the Security Operation Center, abbreviated as SOC. But what exactly is the SOC and how does it work?

In this article, we’ll delve into the world of the SOC, discovering its crucial role in defending companies against digital threats. So get ready to dive into a company’s cyber “emergency room” and understand how the SOC constantly works to ensure information protection. We’ll reveal the secrets of this silent group of people and how their work helps protect companies of all sizes.

Introducing the Security Operation Center (SOC)

Every day, companies of all sizes are under attack from cybercriminals, malware, and attempts to gain unauthorized access to their ICT systems. Cybersecurity has become a top priority to protect sensitive data, business processes, and the very reputation of organizations. In this scenario, the Security Operation Center, known as SOC, helps defend companies from these digital threats.

Making a comparison with medicine, while the Red Team (which we have already encountered in our articles) could be compared to the cure, the Security Operation Center, the SOC (also called the blue Team), is the “emergency room” of a cyber threat.

The SOC is therefore the nerve center of the response to cyber threats. The place where highly specialized experts work tirelessly to identify, prevent, and above all mitigate threats in real time. You won’t find costumed superheroes, but a high-tech facility with a team of professionals trained to combat cyber threats at any time of day or night.

The main task of the SOC is constant surveillance of the corporate IT environment. Returning to the medical comparison, just as a doctor constantly monitors a patient’s heartbeat, the SOC monitors data flow, network traffic, system access, and other relevant activities. Its mission is to detect any suspicious activity and respond promptly to mitigate risks. In a world where threats can emerge from anywhere, SOC readiness is a key element of corporate security.

These professionals understand information technologies, cybercriminal tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and the challenges of digital security. They work together to maintain a constantly active line of defense against threats. It’s a job that requires dedication, continuous training, and the adoption of the latest technologies and practices to stay ahead of digital attackers.

The SOC is one of the key components in the corporate cybersecurity landscape. With this chapter, we have laid the foundation for understanding the rest of this article dedicated to the SOC, an essential element of companies against cyber threats.

The Crucial Role of the SOC in Corporate Cyber Security

As we’ve seen, the Security Operation Center (SOC) plays a central role in corporate cybersecurity, acting as a vital bulwark against growing digital threats. But what exactly is its crucial role, and why is it so critical for businesses?

The SOC uses various technologies to monitor network traffic, system access, device activity, and much more. Its goal is to detect in real time any suspicious activity or behavior that could indicate a potential attack.

Once the SOC detects a threat, it springs into action. Its response is rapid and effective, aiming to contain and neutralize the threat before it can cause significant damage. This ability to respond immediately is critical to corporate security, as even a short delay in reacting could lead to serious consequences.

The SOC is also responsible for analyzing threats and gathering crucial information that can be used to further improve corporate security including through Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) activities. Post-incident analyses help understand how attacks occurred and what can be done to prevent them in the future.

In the context of increasingly stringent regulatory compliance, the SOC plays an important role in helping companies comply with cybersecurity laws and regulations. Provides detailed reports on security activities, helping to demonstrate compliance with required standards.

The Structure and Staff of the SOC

To fully understand how a Security Operation Center works (SOC), it is essential to examine its structure and understand the experts involved in this crucial cybersecurity team.

The Structure of the SOC

A SOC can vary in size and complexity, depending on the needs of the company, but its basic structure remains constant. Typically, a SOC is organized to have a central operations room where operators constantly monitor activities and respond to threats. This operations room is equipped with multiple screens, advanced monitoring tools, and threat management systems.

The SOC is connected to a series of tools and systems that detect suspicious activity or warning signs in the various components of the company’s infrastructure. These include intrusion detection systems, network traffic analysis tools, threat management systems, and much more. Integrating these technologies allows the SOC to have a complete view of the corporate IT environment.

SOC Staff

The beating heart of a SOC is its team of highly specialized experts. As we have always reported on these pages, having the best tools on the market but not knowing how to configure and use them is equivalent to having low effectiveness in terms of protection.

So the heart of the SOC is not the tools but the people. These highly technical professionals bring essential skills and knowledge to ensure the SOC performs its role effectively. Some of the key roles within a SOC include:

1. Security Analysts: These experts constantly monitor systems for suspicious activity. When threats are detected, security analysts are ready to investigate and take corrective action.
2. Security Engineers: Security engineers are responsible for implementing and managing security systems within the SOC by collaborating with various IT organizations. They obviously work with analysts to ensure that systems are configured correctly;
3. Threat Intelligence Experts: These professionals constantly monitor threat intelligence sources to stay up to date on the latest attacker tactics and also Initial Access Brokers (IaB);
4. Incident Analysts: Incident analysts focus on analyzing breaches (through Incident Response activities) and attacks to understand how they happened and how they can be prevented in the future;
5. Compliance Officers: These experts ensure that the company complies with regulatory security requirements They monitor IT and cyber incidents and provide detailed reports to the relevant authorities when necessary.

Together, these professionals form the team that operates behind the scenes to protect the company from digital threats. Each brings their own skills and knowledge to ensure the SOC functions effectively.

In the next chapter, we’ll delve further into the techniques SOCs use for monitoring and detecting threats. Read on to find out how these control centers consistently address the challenges of corporate cybersecurity.

Threat Monitoring and Detection Techniques

One of the main functions of a A Security Operation Center (SOC) is the constant monitoring of a company’s IT environment to detect and respond to cyber threats early. This chapter will explore some of the techniques and tools used by SOCs to ensure effective monitoring and timely response to threats.

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS/IPS)

Intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) are a cornerstone of threat monitoring within a SOC. IDSs detect suspicious or unauthorized activity within the corporate network, while IPSs can immediately block or mitigate intrusions. These systems are essential for identifying security breaches and cyber attacks.

Network Traffic Analysis

Another key technique used by SOCs is network traffic analysis. This process involves constantly monitoring data traffic within the corporate network in order to identify anomalous patterns or suspicious behavior. Network traffic analysis allows the SOC to detect attack attempts, malware activity, and other unauthorized behavior.

Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) Systems

Threat intelligence systems are used to monitor the entire cyber threat landscape. These systems collect information from multiple sources, including intelligence feeds (white, gray, and black). The goal is to proactively identify emerging threats and vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers. Passive vulnerability analysis systems are also used to identify system flaws early and mitigate them as quickly as possible.

Honeypots and Honeynets

Honeypots and honeynets are used to lure attackers to systems specifically designed to gather threat intelligence. Honeypots are systems or resources that appear vulnerable but are actually designed to capture attackers’ malicious actions. These technologies allow the SOC to study cybercriminals’ tactics and improve its defenses.

Access and Credential Monitoring

Access and credential monitoring is another fundamental aspect of the SOC’s work. This activity involves recording and analyzing access to corporate systems and resources. The SOC seeks to identify anomalous behavior, such as unauthorized access attempts or improper credential use.

These are just some of the techniques used by SOCs for monitoring and ongoing threat intelligence. Combined with highly trained personnel, these techniques enable the SOC to effectively identify, respond to, and prevent cybersecurity threats. In the next chapter, we’ll explore how the SOC addresses threats once detected.

Breach Response: How the SOC Addresses Threats

Once a Security Operations Center (SOC) has identified a threat or suspicious activity within the enterprise IT environment,it is essential that it intervenes quickly and effectively to mitigate risks and protect the business. This chapter will explore how the SOC addresses breaches and threats once detected.

Threat Analysis

The first phase of security incident response is threat analysis. SOC security analysts investigate detected threats to understand their scope and potential impact. This analysis is critical to determining how to address the threat in a targeted manner.

Threat Mitigation

Once the threat is understood, the SOC takes appropriate measures to mitigate it. These actions can vary greatly depending on the type of threat. For example, if it’s malware, the SOC might isolate an infected device or even shut down a portion of the network (as in the case of a ransomware incident) and then remove the malware and restore system integrity. In the event of unauthorized access attempts, staff systems may be blocked and credentials reset.

Reporting and Documentation

The SOC is responsible for detailed documentation of all breaches and related actions taken. This documentation is valuable for forensic investigations, regulatory compliance, and post-incident review. Accuracy and completeness in documentation are essential to ensure transparency and the ability to respond to any legal action.

Collaboration with Competent Authorities

In some cases, violations may be so serious that they require collaboration with competent authorities, such as law enforcement or cybersecurity agencies. The SOC plays a key role in helping these external entities understand the extent of the problem and gather the evidence needed to prosecute attackers.

Preventing Future Breaches

After addressing a threat, the SOC also works to prevent future breaches. This may involve updating security policies, systems, or implementing new protections. Lessons learned from every breach always help strengthen the organization’s defense.

In the next chapter, we’ll explore how the SOC helps ensure regulatory compliance, an increasingly critical aspect of corporate cybersecurity.

The SOC and Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring Legal Security

In the modern business environment, regulatory compliance has become an essential part of cybersecurity. Companies are often subject to regulations and standards that require rigorous security measures to protect sensitive data and privacy. In this chapter, we’ll explore the role of the Security Operation Center (SOC) in ensuring regulatory compliance.

Regulatory compliance refers to adhering to specific regulations, laws, and standards that govern cybersecurity. These regulations impact the way Security Operation Centers operate on a day-to-day basis. Cybersecurity laws often require companies to report incidents to the appropriate authorities. This process is critical to enabling proper investigations and ensuring transparency in the event of a compromise of corporate data or assets.

The SOC plays a key role in managing incident reporting. Here’s how:

1. Detection and Evaluation: The SOC detects and evaluates security incidents in a timely manner. This phase is crucial in determining whether an incident falls under reporting laws.
2. Communication to Authorities: In the event that an incident falls under reporting categories, the SOC is responsible for promptly communicating the incident to the relevant authorities, complying with legal requirements.
3. Cooperation with Authorities: The SOC actively collaborates with the relevant authorities during post-incident investigations, providing relevant information and support in identifying those responsible.

The SOC may collaborate closely with the company’s legal departments to evaluate the possibility of taking action against individuals or entities that have engaged in unlawful behavior within the organization. This collaboration is essential to protect the company’s rights and prosecute those responsible according to applicable laws. Furthermore, the SOC collaborates with competent authorities, such as the Postal Police, to address serious cyber threats and conduct investigations in cases of cybercrime.

Purple Team: Red Team and Blue Team together against cyber threats

As we mentioned previously, the Red Team and the Blue Team (the Security Operation Center) have different mandates within an organization. There is also another team called “Purple Team”(Introduced by April Wright, a well-known American hacker and global coordinator of DEF CON groups, at BlackHat USA 2017), which is actually a synergistic interaction between the Red Team and the Blue Team, in strengthening corporate security and identifying vulnerabilities.

Red Team and Blue Team: Distinct Roles

To fully understand the concept of Purple Team, it is crucial to distinguish between the roles of the Red Team and the Blue Team in cybersecurity.

• The Red Team is made up of security experts tasked with conducting security audits and simulating cyber attacks against the company. Their primary goal is to discover and exploit system vulnerabilities to improve it;
• The Blue Team, the Security Operation Center (SOC), is responsible, as we have seen, for the defense and security of systems. This team constantly monitors the network, responds to incidents, and implements security measures to protect the company.

The Purple Team: Collaboration and Continuous Improvement

The Purple Team is a natural evolution of these two teams. Its main function is to promote active collaboration between the Red Team and the Blue Team to create a continuous cycle of improvement for the two teams and thus create a benefit for corporate security.

• Real-Time Collaboration: While the Red Team conducts attack simulations, the Blue Team is involved in detecting and responding to threats generated by the Red Team. This collaboration allows the Blue Team to learn the real attack methods generated by the Red Team and identify new vulnerabilities and threats;
• Continuous Evaluation: The Purple Team facilitates a continuous evaluation of the corporate security environment. This process allows you to proactively identify and fix vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by real attackers;
• Process Improvement: The Purple Team helps to constantly improve the Attack (for the Red Team) and Defense (for the Blue Team) techniques as they are always in constant exercise with each other. This includes optimizing security policies, training staff and implementing new defense technologies.

Realistic Threat Scenario

One of the keys to the Purple Team’s success is the creation of “exercises” on realistic threat scenarios. These scenarios mimic the tactics of real attackers and allow the Purple Team to effectively test the Blue Team’s preparedness and incident response. The Red Team and Blue Team also implement improvement plans for security policies as well as the company’s protection and prevention techniques, as we will see in the next chapter.

Protection and Prevention Techniques

To ensure corporate IT security, the Security Operation Center (SOC) does more than just monitor, detect, and respond to threats. It is also responsible for implementing protection and prevention measures to minimize risks. In this chapter, we’ll explore some of the techniques used by the SOC to act as a digital shield for the protection of the company.

• Patch Management, Hardening, and Secure Code Development: One of the fundamental aspects of protecting IT infrastructures is the magic trio of Patch Management, Hardening, and Secure Code Development. Failure to apply these related processes can allow cybercriminals to gain access to an ICT infrastructure.
• Firewalls and Web Filters: Firewalls and Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) are key tools for the SOC’s work, to control and limit network traffic. The SOC configures and manages these devices to prevent access to malicious or unauthorized websites and to protect the corporate network from unwanted intrusions.
• Antivirus and Endpoint Security: Antivirus programs and endpoint security are essential for detecting and blocking malware and cyber threats. These tools constantly monitor endpoint devices, such as computers and smartphones, to detect suspicious behavior or malicious files.
• Network Monitoring and Log Analysis: Logs are essential for the SOC’s work both to detect unauthorized access and during incident response, to understand how a cyber incident occurred. The SOC therefore constantly analyzes the presence of LOGs within the systems to allow them to be used to protect corporate security;
• Password Management and Multi Factor Authentication (MFA): Applying correct password policies is essential for good protection against cyber attacks in a company. “Multi-factor” authentication is a security measure that requires more than one form of identity verification to access a system. This is just one example of the authentication systems that the SOC recommends for access management, especially towards a paradigm called “zero trust” that is increasingly taking hold in today’s cybersecurity;
• Access Monitoring: Constant monitoring of access to company systems and resources is essential to detect suspicious activity or unauthorized access attempts. The SOC uses advanced tools to record and analyze access, ensuring data security.
• Increasing cyber risk awareness: An often underestimated element of protection is user education. The SOC helps develop training programs to raise awareness among business users about cyber threats, teach them best practices, and promote a culture of cybersecurity.
• Identity and Access Management (IAM): Identity and access management is a key process for ensuring that only authorized individuals can access certain corporate resources. The SOC monitors access to corporate systems.

In summary, the SOC takes a series of protective and preventive measures to keep the corporate IT environment safe. These measures go beyond simply responding to threats and help create a solid digital shield for the company. In the next chapter, we’ll explore how the SOC stays ahead of attackers’ tactics to proactively protect the organization. Read on to learn how the SOC consistently challenges digital bad actors.

Current Challenges and Future of Security Operation Centers (SOCs)

With the new With threats constantly emerging, the Security Operation Center (SOC) is called upon to stay one step ahead of digital attackers. We know that attackers are using (and abusing) new technologies to commit new crimes, even illegally. One new technology we’re starting to see today is artificial intelligence. Cybercriminals have no problem using completely open and unrestricted language models (LLMs), while more and more people are starting to think about how to regulate AI.

• Threat Intelligence-Driven Security: The SOC uses threat intelligence to more effectively monitor the ever-growing amount of telemetry information coming from IT systems. It constantly monitors cybersecurity information sources and stays abreast of emerging threats. This knowledge is critical to anticipating and addressing new threats.
• Adoption of Advanced Technologies: The SOC is known for adopting advanced technologies to improve corporate cybersecurity. These technologies can include, as seen, artificial intelligence, machine learning, behavioral analytics, and automation tools.
• Collaboration with the Security Community: The SOC is often part of a larger community of cybersecurity professionals. This collaboration enables the exchange of information, the sharing of best practices, and a more effective response to shared threats. Sharing threat intelligence is critical to staying ahead of attacks;
• Continuous Staff Training:SOC staff must remain constantly updated on new threats and technologies. Continuous training is an essential element to ensuring the SOC is able to address evolving cybersecurity challenges;
• Continuous Evaluation and Improvement: The SOC constantly evaluates its operations and its responses to threats, including (as we have seen) through the joint Purple Team table. These assessments allow you to identify areas for improvement and proactively make changes to procedures, processes, and systems;
• Emerging Threat Surveillance: The SOC is particularly attentive to emerging threats, including those related to new technologies and trends, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and virtualization. Constantly monitor how these trends may impact cybersecurity and develop strategies to address them.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve delved into the world of the Security Operation Center (SOC), the beating heart of corporate cybersecurity. The SOC plays a crucial role in protecting corporate data and assets by proactively and effectively addressing cyber threats.

We’ve examined the SOC’s distinctive role, with the Red Team focusing on identifying vulnerabilities and the Blue Team defending the network. Collaboration between these teams is critical to maintaining a secure IT environment. Our journey led us to examine technological evolution in the field of cybersecurity, including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and behavioral analytics to detect threats more efficiently.

We explored the importance of regulatory compliance and reporting incidents to the relevant authorities, highlighting how the SOC can play a key role in both. Finally, we discovered how the Purple Team, a synergy between the Red Team and the Blue Team, can help further strengthen corporate security.

In closing, the SOC represents a critical element for any company that wants to protect its digital assets and customer trust. Its ability to identify, mitigate, and prevent cyber threats is crucial to business continuity and business success.

Cybersecurity is a constantly evolving field, and the SOC is destined to remain at the center of this change. Continue to follow the latest trends and best practices to keep your corporate IT environment safe. Security is an ongoing challenge, but with the right approach and the support of the SOC, you can face cyber threats with confidence and determination.