Building a fully functional SOC team is not a simple feat. The team should have the right people onboard who can assist in threat monitoring, threat intelligence management, alert management, incident analysis, threat hunting, intrusion detection, and incident response processes. The team members not only have to be skilled and highly trained, but they should also be capable of seeing the big picture and be prepared with remediation, particularly when faced with an active threat. Moreover, as organizations expand their corporate networks to hybrid-remote operations in the post-pandemic world, the need for qualified cybersecurity professionals with a wider range of skills has become a necessity more than ever. However, that’s easier said than done, and attracting eligible professionals is likely too far out of reach in the current cybersecurity skills shortage scenario. As per the world’s largest nonprofit association of certified cybersecurity professionals, (ISC)², there’s a shortage of 2.7 million skilled cybersecurity professionals worldwide. This means that the SOC leaders need to scrutinize the existing pool of available talent in the market and hire ideal prospects while keeping the job requirements as well as the organization’s budget in mind. Not to mention, this hiring process adds to the existing burden on SOC leaders who are also responsible for managing their team members as well as overseeing the smooth and effective implementation of security operations on a daily basis.
With the prevailing talent crunch in the market, most of the SOC teams invariably find themselves understaffed to deal with the changing cyber threat landscape Security teams are stretched too thin while they struggle to sift through a never-ending barrage of alerts and log data daily to identify and respond to threats that could be dangerous. These repetitive and time-consuming tasks carried out on a daily basis cause analyst fatigue and burnout among the security teams, which also increases the chance of missing out on critical threats. But, the bigger picture is organizations can lose millions if a threat is not detected and mitigated in time.
According to ‘The Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022’ by Ponemon Institute and IBM Security, it takes an average of 207 days to identify a data breach and another average time of 70 days to contain it. In a situation, especially when understaffed security teams are already suffering from burnout and alert fatigue due to a sheer volume of threat alerts, the resolution timeline to respond to a threat can go for a toss and have a catastrophic impact on an organization. Moreover, because of the workforce shortage, the security teams are left with less time to focus on more important tasks associated with defending networks and systems.