Splunk SOAR Cyber Security: A Comprehensive Overview

Are the myriad of cyber security threats overwhelming your Splunk Security SOC team? Are you looking for a way to automate your response processes and streamlining your cyber security operations? Consider investigating SOAR – Security Orchestration Automation and Response. One of the most popular cyber security solutions currently available on the market, SOAR could be exactly what your team is looking for. In this blog post, we’ll dive deep into understanding what SOAR is and how it works so that you can make the best decision for your organization’s security program.

Put in simplest terms, Splunk SOAR automates many tasks that are related to cyber security. Automation allows organizations to gain an increased visibility into their IT environments and gain actionable intelligence into potential threats – and in a way that cuts down on the overwhelm occurring across security teams today. 

But let’s break it down even further. 

First, what’s the difference between Splunk SIEM and Splunk SOAR?

The Splunk SIEM and Splunk SOAR cyber security solutions are distinct technologies that provide complementary capabilities for optimizing SOC performance. When leveraged together, these powerful solutions heighten the level of security monitoring effectiveness – giving organizations the assurance they need to operate with confidence.

SIEM

The SIEM, or Security Information & Event Management, technology provides essential situational awareness for your IT security operations – aggregating and correlating relevant data from multiple sources to generate actionable alerts. Utilizing advanced analytics, SIEM technologies are finely tuned by security professionals to mitigate false positives so true threats can be identified faster; however, the sheer volume of alerts can be overwhelming for any SOC team tasked with prioritization and remediation.

If you’d like to learn more about Splunk Enterprise Security as a SIEM, check out our related blog post: Understanding Splunk ES and Its Role in Cybersecurity.

SOAR

SOAR allows security teams to tackle and quickly respond to the mountain of alerts produced by their SIEM. By automating response processes, gathering important data and managing cases efficiently, a successful integration with secure alerting systems helps create adaptable incident responses on-demand.

It’s time to explore the various elements and benefits of SOAR. Let’s dig in.

When it comes to the SOAR cyber security acronym, what does orchestration really mean?

The term ‘orchestrating’ refers to an advanced machine-driven coordination of a series of interdependent security actions across a complex infrastructure, which ensures that different tools — mostly security focused but also non-security ones — coexist harmoniously and interact with each other. In this manner, Splunk SOAR enables enterprises to gain context around potential breaches and incidents, allowing analysts to go beyond mere alert management and instead focus on investigating the root cause of the problem. Splunk SOAR is thus a powerful asset in any organization’s cyber security arsenal.

tl;dr

• Fast, Machine-Driven Coordination – Connecting security actions across complex infrastructures, enabling unified security operations.
• Deep, Contextual Insight – Data is aggregated to provide incident-specific context as well as a comprehensive overview of the environment.
• Enhanced Investigation & Response – Teams can leverage dashboards and other visuals at every step of the discovery, investigation, and response action process.

What are the advanced benefits of the automation element of Splunk SOAR?

Splunk SOAR automates many of the repetitive, manual tasks that security analysts are often bogged down with, such as alert triage and incident response. This frees up time for analysts to focus on more strategic tasks, such as threat detection and prevention. 

In addition, Splunk SOAR’s automation capabilities help ensure that incidents are dealt with quickly and efficiently, minimizing the impact on your organization. When it comes to threat detection, threat triage, and decision-making, each of these stages and more can happen in seconds with automation and without human involvement. 

tl;dr

• Task Automation – Removes repetitive and manual tasks that cause alert fatigue. 
• Rapid Incident Response – Ensures incident handling is efficient to minimize business impact. 
• Seconds, Not Hours – Threat handling actions can occur in seconds – and without analyst involvement. 

Additional features of the Splunk SOAR cyber security solution: 

Case Management

A case in Splunk SOAR is a container that consolidates multiple events into one incident. Splunk SOAR provides workbooks for case management. Case management lets users codify a standard operating procedure into a reusable template and assign tasks to collaborators.

App Integration

Apps can be integrated and connect your Splunk SOAR cyber security solution with other security technologies to coordinate workflows. Hurricane Labs can help you from start to finish with your Splunk SOAR deployment, including custom SOAR app development. Let us know if we can help.

Playbooks 

Playbooks are a series of automated security actions across tools. Furthermore, pre-made playbooks and an accessible visual playbook editor are both available in Splunk SOAR. Additionally, with a services provider like Hurricane Labs, you can also gain the customized development of SOAR playbooks set up specifically for your unique environment. 

Overall, what does Splunk SOAR help security teams accomplish? 

Splunk SOAR brings tremendous benefits to security teams by increasing efficiency and allowing them to delegate mundane tasks to machines. This frees up time for more complex projects, enabling the team members to focus on more impactful initiatives.