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Hazards to Avoid When Implementing SOAR

by Sydni Williams-Shaw on October 13, 2020

You’ve selected the security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) solution that best suits your organization’s unique needs. Congratulations! You are well on your way to optimizing your existing security personnel, processes and technologies. While it may be tempting to dive right in and automate all the things, proceed with caution. Here are four pitfalls to avoid to ensure successful SOAR implementation and maximize your ROI:

Expecting everything to work perfectly out-of-the-box right from the beginning.
If a SOAR vendor promises this, run—don’t walk—in the other direction. Every security operations center (SOC) is unique with its own unique needs and security stack. So, no SOAR implementation is going to work straight out of the box. It will take time and some customization to integrate your organization’s existing people, processes and technologies to optimize your SOAR solution and fortify your security infrastructure.
Trying to automate everything at once.
Once you unlock the power of SOAR with your first use case, it can be tempting to want to do all the things at once. But you have to walk before you can run. Focus on small wins and build from there.
Lacking defined incident response processes.
To optimize your existing people, processes and technologies, defined incident response processes must be in place. Having defined processes in place before you implement your new SOAR solution will make it easier for you and your team to prioritize what needs to be automated. What’s more, it’s important to have documented standard operating procedures in place to integrate the SOAR solution across your SOC effectively.
Not preparing your staff effectively. When it comes to integrating security tools with your SOAR solution, you need to make sure your staff is properly trained to complete the coding that may be necessary to optimize your SOAR capabilities. This means your analysts may need skills in scripting languages, including Perl, Python and Ruby. Additionally, make sure your SOAR solution has a graphical interface to enable non-coder use.

SOAR implementation can be tricky, but doing it right is absolutely worth the investment. Choosing the right SOAR platform can go a long way in making SOAR implementation easier for you and your team. See what Gartner has to say about the market in the 2020 Market Guide for Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response.