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Benefits Of Having A Security Operations Centre

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Dr. Makarand Sawant, Senior General Manager - IT, Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation

Cybersecurity is the protection of internet-connected systems, including hardware, software and data, from cyberattacks. A successful cyberattack can cause major damage to a business. It can affect the bottom line, as well as business' standing and consumer trust. The impact of a security breach can be broadly divided into three categories financial, reputational and legal.

Businesses can suffer significant financial loss because of cybercrime with the most obvious impact being theft. Reputational risk is the potential for damage to an organization's character or good name. Cybersecurity, data protection and privacy are some of the most important legal risks.

Most common cyberattack types are Denial-of-service (DoS) and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), Man-in-the-middle (MitM), Phishing and spear phishing, Drive-by, Password, SQL injection, Cross-site scripting (XSS), Eavesdropping, Malware attack.

To mitigate risk we have to detect and prevent these attacks. This is possible only if we have resources who are continuously monitoring our IT setup and taking necessary corrective actions. Typically, SOC (Security operations centre) is established for this purpose.

The SOC team's goal is to detect, analyze, and respond to cybersecurity incidents using a

combination of technology solutions and a strong set of processes. SOC are typically staffed with security analysts and engineers as well as managers who oversee security operations.

One of the main benefits of having a Security Operations Centre is that it improves security incident detection through constant monitoring and analysis. Through this activity, the SOC team can analyze networks, servers, and database, which ensures timely detection of security incidents. Monitoring 24/7, a SOC is able to provide organizations with an advantage to defend against intrusions regardless of the type of attack at any time.

Today, it is important for organizations to ensure that their IT infrastructure is well protected because it holds very valuable information and is an integral part of the company. SOC services provide deep insights into an organizations security posture and recommend the fixes and changes to ensure healthy IT infrastructure. It can be a very expensive affair to lose your data in case of a cyber-attack, but if you have SOC services in place, then it proactively detects incidents and ensures optimum safety.

One of the main benefits of having a security operations centre is that it improves security incident detection through constant monitoring and analysis


We need to also have some very important security controls for effective cybersecurity. Keeping an inventory of authorized and unauthorized software, securing hardware and software configurations, continuously assessing and remediating vulnerabilities, ensuring access control and administrative privileges are accurate and in constant use, protecting browsers, controlling network ports, protecting data, securing applications, monitoring and controlling accounts.

We need to follow some basic tactical methods to mitigate risk from cyberattacks. Perform proactive risk assessments, identify whitelist applications, OS and application patching, limit administrative privileges, create an incident response plan, use a firewall as one of the first lines of defense in a cyber-attack, document your cybersecurity policies, plan for mobile devices, educate all employees, enforce safe password practices, regularly back up all data, install anti-malware software & use multifactor identification.

Make your employees care about cybersecurity as people are the largest security vulnerability in any organization.

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