As you might expect, the cost of a SOC varies significantly from organisation to organisation. Implementing the latest technologies and monitoring them 24/7 is costly, and the certified security experts needed to carry out day-to-day operations don’t come cheap. Even for a medium-sized business, costs can quickly escalate into the millions, with recent research from the Ponemon Institute suggesting an average annual spend of over £2.5 million. Outsourcing the SOC function should yield significant cost-savings – for many organisations the subscription fee will be lower than the equivalent cost of hiring just a small team of analysts to cover a 24/7 shift rota.