Security Orchestration and Automation Services

 

SOAR and Automation Visioning & Assessment

What is Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR)?

Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) is a term coined by Gartner to describe technology platforms that aggregate security intelligence and context from diverse sources and leverage machine learning or artificial intelligence to streamline or fully automate incident detection and response.

Examples of Security Orchestration and Response

Think of it this way: remember that band you were part of in high school, practicing out of your parents’ garage? The jam sessions were probably loud and chaotic.

 

You might’ve even sounded good on a song or two. But selling out arenas probably wasn’t in your future.

 

Now imagine the New York Philharmonic. Dozens of musicians playing in perfect harmony and synchronization, week in and week out. The heart of orchestration and automation is transforming the way you handle data and security processes from jam band to philharmonic.

 

Automation sounds like what it is: automating processes or tasks that were previously done manually, like importing server logs or end user password requests. It’s the individual musicians in the orchestra each playing their part perfectly.

Orchestration is a bit more involved. It’s how you plan and coordinate all the processes, elements and variables, how you weigh the risk from automated alerts. Orchestration is the conductor keeping time and cueing in the horns at just the right moment.

 

Many organizations focus only on automation, but that’s like having a virtuoso guitarist joining your jam session: they might be the best guitar player alive, but if the drummer can’t keep time and the bassist is off-key, your performance will be mediocre at best.

 

Orchestration is key to ensure all your automated processes are playing together in harmony.

Why Should You Leverage Automation and Orchestration?

 

“We don’t have the time and resources to get our current work done.”

“Human errors cause significant time and effort to fix or repair.”

“We feel stuck continuously solving the same problems.”

“Deadlines slip because high priority issues interrupt workflows.”

“None of my tools talk to each other.”

No, we haven’t been listening in on your security operations team meetings. The fact is a lot of our clients have faced similar challenges.

 

 

Challenges Caused by a Lack of Automation & Orchestration

 

Do any of these challenges sound familiar?

 

  • Frequent, regular processes that are prone to human error or lack critical constraints
  • Lack of ability to quickly respond to newly discovered threats or vulnerabilities
  • Difficulty achieving scale with limited resources
  • Large, complex projects that touch multiple areas

 

If so, your business might benefit from an Orchestration & Automation solution.

 

 

Benefits of Security Orchestration Automation and Response

 

Introducing Orchestration and Automation (O&A) to your processes can help. Our clients see benefits like:

 

  • Reduced time to solve issues due to reduced human error and repeatable task frameworks
  • Increased capability for organized, parallel workstreams
  • Frequent, repeatable infrastructure deployments that ensure up-to-date security fixes
  • Streamlined communication between developers and security personnel
  • Finding and remediating vulnerabilities before production

What Does an O&A Deployment Look Like?

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O&A Case Study

 

One of our clients, a large healthcare organization, had tried multiple times to transform their platform deployments from manual to orchestrated, but each attempt to develop the capability internally or externally ended in failure. They also lacked the internal expertise to automate deployments and configure their large (almost 15 TB/day) data lake.

 

See another SOAR Case Study

So they tapped us. Following an in-depth Optiv Data Lake Assessment, we:

Reduced the time to completely redeploy and reconfigure their Hadoop and ElasticSearch environment from months to days.

Orchestrated automatic deployments, configured infrastructure, applications and security settings. 

Our consultants continue to work alongside the client to maintain and upgrade the platform, and perform additional consulting as needed.

Related Cloud and Network

Automation & Orchestration Insights

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SOAR & Automation: Build, Deploy, Configure

 

Optiv's SOAR services help you build, deploy and configure robust security automation and orchestration platforms.

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Orchestration and Automation – Visioning and Assessment

 

Optiv's Visioning and Assessment services work with you to co-design the future of your security.

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Accelerating Vulnerability Remediation with Automation

 

We reduced mean time to remediate by accelerating the processes from vulnerability discovery to the deployment of a corrective system update.

Speak to an Orchestration & Automation Expert

 

Would you like to speak to an advisor?

How can we help you today?

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