Creating Security Operations That Stay Ahead of Risks

It can be easy for security operations to fall into the habit of being simply reactive. When an industry is based on dealing with critical events, reaction is an important component of operations. However, there is also value in the proactive risk management model that is becoming more widespread within the industry.

How Security Operations Can be Proactive

Assessing needs is a key step in creating a proactive security operations model. For your particular organization, figuring out what your risk landscape looks like includes asking questions such as:

  • What, specifically, will you need to monitor?
  • Who will need to be informed?
  • What are your goals now, and how can you incorporate intelligence to mitigate threats?

It’s also important to create a risk management strategy. Of course, not every situation can be predicted, but you can ensure you have the right tools in place so you can react as quickly as possible when incidents occur and have established response plans to follow based on potential impacts.

There are best practices for the security industry, but it’s important to note that much of the work done in a security operations center shifts in response to external events. To be proactive, operators need to be trained on a number of response protocols and have the ability to pivot and adjust.

Communication is Central to Effective Security Operations

Security operations impact the whole organization, so cross-functional partnerships with other departments are important to the success of your operations. Departments like facilities, human resources, crisis management and more are empowered to make informed decisions based on intelligence they receive from the security team.

Communication and collaboration are also vital to refining the tasks of your security operations team. Internal, interdepartmental communication and benchmarking within the community are all important for knowing what information you should monitor and pay attention to. When defining the scope of your security operations, communication with stakeholders makes clear what is needed most and what will be most helpful to the organization. This, in turn, empowers your security operations team to know how and where to direct their focus.

Creating Operations Centers for Security Risk Management

The primary responsibilities of a SOC or GSOC are to monitor threats to assets and personnel, assess the threats, coordinate the appropriate response strategy and communicate with relevant personnel.

Aided by automation, operators in a security operations center can track, manage and prevent threats. Centralizing risk management in a single location allows for immediate mitigation as well as opportunities for education and collaboration on the risk landscape. Having an operations center to monitor and communicate security intelligence and strategic insights enables leaders to successfully navigate an ever-changing risk landscape.

A security operations center functions best when all the analysts in the room can view relevant alerts and data from a central display that allows operators to seamlessly collaborate with one another. The best way to display relevant information to all operators within a space is on a large, central video wall.

For displaying real-time data in mission-critical operations, the video wall technology you choose is vital. Compared to other environments, command centers require more durable technology that can withstand 24/7 use.

An experienced video wall integrator can pick and choose from among the most advanced technologies to create a system with the best processors, switchers, screens and other components for your video wall’s specific use case.

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Kelly Fanthorpe

Kelly Fanthorpe is the Marketing Coordinator at Constant Technologies, Inc.

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