{"id":23514,"date":"2024-12-02T00:31:25","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T19:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/?p=23514"},"modified":"2025-04-25T13:11:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T07:41:35","slug":"why-security-operations-as-a-service-is-critical-for-indian-enterprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/resources\/blogs\/why-security-operations-as-a-service-is-critical-for-indian-enterprises\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Security Operations as a Service is Critical for Indian Enterprises"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>SOCaaS for Indian Enterprises: Securing the Ever-Expanding Attack Surface<\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indian companies today are dealing with an ever-expanding attack surface.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The transition to <\/span><b>remote working<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has increased the proliferation of mobile devices operating beyond traditional security perimeters.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The use of <\/span><b>third-party supply chains<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> can lead to exponential growth, but also exponential fallout if breached.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>IoT devices <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are rapidly becoming a crucial part of business, with little consideration given to their potentially weak security controls.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And because of these possible vulnerabilities, they are being targeted by <\/span><b>increasingly advanced cyberattacks<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from a host of bad actors, ranging from individual attackers to government-backed APT groups.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consider this &#8211; according to research done by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/finance\/personal-finance\/india-may-see-1-trillion-cyberattacks-annually-by-2033-experts-warn-124103000899_1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Prahar<\/a>, India could attract nearly 1 trillion cyberattacks annually by 2033. A majority of those predicted attacks will be toward Indian enterprises, and a single successful attack could lead to a halt in operations, decreased brand reputation, and massive financial fallout. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/finance\/news\/india-s-average-data-breach-costs-hit-2-18-mn-in-2023-up-28-since-2020-124072900750_1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RBI\u2019s report on currency and finance<\/a>, the average cost of data breaches in India hit $2.18 million in 2023, up 28% from 2020.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The Case for a Centralized SOC in Today\u2019s Perimeter-less World<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With so many devices, networks, endpoints, and a general push towards multicloud strategies, the perimeter has been extended to such a level that it is hard to predict where the next attack is going to come from. Findings from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwc.in\/digital-trust-insights-india.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PWC 2024 Global Digital Trust Insights &#8211; India Edition<\/a> show that Indian organizations are most concerned about cloud-related threats (52% of respondents), attacks on connected devices (45%), hack-and-leak operations (36%), and software supply-chain compromise (35%). With so many potential vulnerabilities, a centralized <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/enterprise-security-management-esm\/\">Security Operations Centre<\/a> (SOC)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that uses 24&#215;7 monitoring to help identify, mitigate, and respond to threats becomes essential in both an information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To that end, many organizations invested in an <\/span><b>in-house SOC.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> However, maintaining and optimizing it over time has become a major challenge, with companies having to deal with burnouts, false positives, alert fatigue, cybersecurity skills shortages, and a constantly changing threat landscape. It can become impossible to keep up with your SOC principles on both IT &amp; OT landscapes &#8211; in many businesses, SOCs don\u2019t have the proper governance mechanisms to take quick action. That can be highly detrimental during an attack, where every second counts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ultimately, the goal is to keep the business running without cyber impact while also improving customer experience. Therefore, enterprises are outsourcing their operations to the many managed security services India has to offer, with <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/resources\/blogs\/what-is-soc-as-a-service-socaas\/\">SOCaaS<\/a> (Security Operations Centre as a Service)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> becoming an increasingly attractive proposition. Here are some of the reasons for this choice:<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><b>The Scenario with In-House SOCs<\/b><\/td>\n<td><b>The Scenario with SOCaaS<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Often, in-house SOCs are led by <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">short-staffed IT teams<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our SOCaaS is handled by a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">dedicated team<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> focused on this specific task.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To optimize your in-house SOC, you will have to hire competent security experts in a market where demand is significantly more than supply.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our SOCaaS team has <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">best-in-class security experts<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> who fortify your systems through a strategy that involves advanced automation.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You will have to spend a lot of time getting the best solutions for every aspect of your SOC scope.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our SOCaaS is augmented with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">best-in-breed security solutions<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that work together as a powerful whole.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Adherence to industry and location-specific regulations is another thing on your in-house SOC\u2019s plate.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our SOCaaS adheres to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">all major regulatory requirements across industries and locations.<\/span><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Initial costs of setting up your SOC will be high, with staffing, equipment, physical space, licenses and software to be considered.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">costs are significantly decreased<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in SOCaaS, as they are shared by multiple customers under a pay-as-you-use pricing model.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scaling up your SOC as your organization grows will take great investment.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">scale up economically and effortlessly <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">with our SOCaaS solution.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h2>Why SOCaaS is the Answer for Indian Enterprises<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rate of SOCaaS adoption has increased dramatically in India for different reasons across sectors like healthcare, pharma, and manufacturing. In particular, demand for enhanced maturity linked to the adoption of advanced technologies is seen more from banking &amp; financial services, mainly because of the stringent regulations present in their industry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One such recent regulation is the <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/resources\/blogs\/sebi-cscrf-explained\/\">Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Framework<\/a> (CSCRF)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a set of SEBI mandates to all players operating within its Regulated Entity (RE) classification in India\u2019s financial markets. The mandate of a 24x7x365 SOC to monitor, prevent, predict, detect, investigate, and respond to cyber threats is one of the core requirements of CSCRF.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SEBI was cognizant that setting up an in-house SOC could lead to great difficulties for smaller REs, for all the reasons we highlighted earlier. Therefore, they have given REs these options: their own\/group SOC, a market SOC (mandatory for small-size &amp; self-certification REs), or a third-party managed SOC, like the one we have in our cybersecurity suite.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here are the key SOC functions SEBI mandates:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Continuous Monitoring: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This involves keeping a constant eye on all vectors, and immediately notifying the relevant authorities wherever there are instances of abnormal or suspicious behavior.<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Log Management: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Aggregation and correlation of data from various networks, endpoints, applications, firewalls, OS, etc. to establish a baseline for normal behavior.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Alert Management: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Monitoring all the alerts that occur once things deviate from the baselines, discarding false positives, and determining the potential impact of threats.<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Threat Response: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Acting as a digital \u2018first responder\u2019 during incidents, isolating endpoints and limiting the fallout with as little disruption to business operations as possible.<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Root Cause Analysis: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Post occurrence of an incident, SOCs are responsible for analyzing all the logs to identify the root cause and prevent its reoccurrence.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While this is going on, SEBI also mandates measuring the functional efficacy of your SOC every year for all REs except qualified REs, who have to do it every 6 months. This entails thorough audits, where <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/resources\/blogs\/introduction-to-vapt-vulnerability-assessment-penetration-testing\/\">vulnerability assessment &amp; penetration testing<\/a> (VAPT)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> plays a key role. <\/span><b>Vulnerability assessments<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are inside-out &#8211; they scan systems, networks, and applications for potential vulnerabilities like outdated software, missing patches, and misconfigurations. <\/span><b>Penetration testing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is outside-in &#8211; they simulate real-world attacks to test every aspect of your security controls.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While we highly recommend incorporating SOCaaS into your operations, we are aware of the initial challenges. It involves sharing your data with a third party, which has its risks. Furthermore, depending on which SOCaaS provider you go with, the onboarding process may be time-consuming, resulting in a potential risk exposure in this vulnerable phase.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All these challenges can be overcome by choosing a trusted, dynamic SOCaaS provider, like us. Here are ways of distinguishing an ineffective SOCaaS provider from an effective one:<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>SOCaaS vs. In-House SOC: A Comparison<\/h3>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><b>An Ineffective SOCaaS<\/b><\/td>\n<td><b>An Effective SOCaaS (like ours)<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Specific KPIs and SLAs are not clearly defined at the time of agreement.\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a focus on results and improving key metrics like <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mean time to remediate (MTTR) <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mean time to investigate (MTTI).<\/span><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is incomplete integration between all the SOC technologies, leading to data silos and reduced operational efficiency.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All technologies within the SOC are <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">seamlessly integrated<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and processes are displayed in a simplified, unified dashboard.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SOC governance is neglected, with not much clarity when it comes to roles &amp; responsibilities.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is an establishment of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">clear roles, responsibilities, and decision-making frameworks.<\/span><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Threat alert management and incident response are done manually, impeding swift &amp; effective response actions and generating high false positive alert rates.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All these tasks are done with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">advanced automation capabilities<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that improve efficiency, reduce human errors, eradicate false positives, and alleviate the workload on analysts.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Effective planning, integration, and functioning of playbooks and workbooks is lacking.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Numerous standardized, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">predefined playbooks<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are followed to ensure consistent &amp; effective handling of security incidents.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a lack of a threat-hunting function, leading to a constantly <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reactive<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> security posture.<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Threat intelligence platforms keep track of emerging threats, allowing you to be <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">proactive<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> when it comes to security.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h2>Key Trends Shaping the Future of SOCaaS<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ultimately, SOCaaS solutions have to be constantly evolving to be ready for both today&#8217;s and tomorrow\u2019s threats. Here are some trends we see when it comes to the future of SOCaaS:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Attackers are increasingly using <\/span><b>AI and ML<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in their attacks, so we must use them for our strategies. AI can scan billions of data points in real-time, spotting behaviors that even seasoned analysts might miss. Furthermore, it could be used for instant incident response, reacting in seconds instead of minutes or hours. It isn\u2019t surprising that organizations that use AI &amp; automation extensively in prevention saved an average of $2.22 million compared to those that didn\u2019t, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibm.com\/reports\/data-breach\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IBM Cost of Data Breach 2024<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reducing false positives is essential for organizations to optimize the time and skills of your teams. This boils down to not taking every alert at face value, but understanding the <\/span><b>contextuality <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">behind every activity. This trend has seen SOCs move away from traditional SIEM-based solutions to more data-driven monitoring platforms.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The migration to the cloud for most enterprises should also see a migration towards <\/span><b>cloud-based SOCs<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which are well-versed with the platforms and facilitate the remote monitoring &amp; management that is essential in this BYOB era. Additionally, you can leverage the scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness that cloud brings when it comes to your SOCaaS provider.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our solution ticks every single box when it comes to the security requirements for your SOC. Here are all the tools we have in our suite:<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Our SOCaaS Suite: The Best Security Operations for Indian Enterprises<\/strong><\/h3>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><b>SOC Functions<\/b><\/td>\n<td><b>SOC Solutions<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Continuous Monitoring<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Splunk Observability for tracking network activity<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Opentext ITOM for system performance monitoring<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tenable for managing vulnerabilities effectively<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Root Cause Analysis<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">EnCase for effective, insight-led analysis<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Threat Intelligence<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recorded Future, Anomali &amp; Google Threat Intel<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Threat Detection<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google Chronicle, ArcSight, and InnSpark for real-time monitoring, log management, and correlation of security events<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Incident Response<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google Siemplify and Splunk Phantom use predefined playbooks to coordinate responses &amp; ensure timely resolution of incidents.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">VAPT<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nessus, Qualys and OpenVAS<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We believe our suite is the best security operations as a service India has to offer. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/enterprise-security-management-esm\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Click here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for a free demo of our SOCaaS solution. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SOCaaS for Indian Enterprises: Securing the Ever-Expanding Attack Surface Indian companies today are dealing with an ever-expanding attack surface.\u00a0 The transition to remote working has increased the proliferation of mobile devices operating beyond traditional security perimeters.\u00a0 The use of third-party supply chains can lead to exponential growth, but also exponential fallout if breached.\u00a0 IoT devices &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/resources\/blogs\/why-security-operations-as-a-service-is-critical-for-indian-enterprises\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why Security Operations as a Service is Critical for Indian Enterprises<\/span> Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[399,400,256,258,257],"whitepapers":[],"case_studies":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23514"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23514"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24270,"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23514\/revisions\/24270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23514"},{"taxonomy":"whitepapers","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/whitepapers?post=23514"},{"taxonomy":"case_studies","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivaluegroup.com\/en-in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case_studies?post=23514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}