5 Steps to Building an Autonomous SOC with AI Augmentation

It’s 2024 and cybersecurity is changing quite fast. AI is at the heart of this shift. Just look at the growing need for roles like AI security engineers and architects. A 2023 PwC report even said that AI could add trillions to the global economy. We're now seeing this potential come to life in how SOCs are evolving.

The idea of an autonomous SOC, where AI does most of the heavy lifting, is getting a lot of attention. While there’s still debate over full automation, one thing is clear: AI is already making SOCs more productive and efficient. Here are five practical steps to help your SOC move toward greater autonomy.

1. Automate Routine Threat Hunting and Incident Response

One of the quickest ways to start building an autonomous SOC is by automating repetitive threat-hunting and incident response tasks. SOC analysts often spend hours on manual processes like triaging events, which can lead to alert fatigue and missed threats.

Take this common workflow as an example: An incident occurs, and analysts need to identify an indicator of compromise (IOC) and then manually look it up on platforms like VirusTotal or AlienVault for more details. But the reality is that you could automate this process:

1. When an alert is generated, an automated system identifies the type of IOC (e.g., suspicious file hash, IP address, or URL).
‍
2. The workflow is programmed to submit the identified IOC to external threat intelligence platforms such as VirusTotal for analysis. This lookup returns real-time data about the IOC’s reputation and related activity.
‍
3. The results from the lookup are automatically appended to the original alert, adding context such as threat scores and known malware associations.
‍
4. Based on predefined conditions, the workflow escalates the alert to an analyst, triggers an automatic response (e.g., quarantining the asset), or dismisses the alert if deemed a false positive.
‍

It might sound complex, but with platforms like Blink, all of these steps can be achieved through a single prompt. Augmentation of threat hunting and incident response processes is one of the most common routines within a SOC that you can easily automate today.

2. Prioritize AI Capabilities in Your Security Tools

A good key to lead in the autonomous SOC direction is to choose the right tools. Not all AI is integrated and used equally. Before choosing a tool, you should dig deeper to understand the AI capabilities of the tool. Here are some questions to ask:

1. What kind of large language models (LLMs) are being used?
‍
2. What is the AI improving for us in detection, analysis, and response?
‍
3. Do we have adaptive learning features to counter new threats?
‍
4. How often is the AI updated, and retrained?

The answers will let you know if the tool’s AI is just for show, or if it’s a real feature that helps with automation and real time analysis. An autonomous system can usually spot potential threats early on, and respond instantly. This is where the right AI capabilities can help SOCs.

3. Automate Context Enrichment for Faster Analysis

A SOC should get significant benefits in terms of efficiency from context enrichment. In other words, it should pull additional information to allow analysts to understand the extent of an alert quickly. An automated system can gather the data instead of having analysts gather data from different sources. 

Here’s an example of an automated workflow for this:

1. A phishing alert is triggered by an email security tool after detecting suspicious activity, such as a potential phishing email targeting a company executive.
‍
2. An AI-based workflow collects data on the sender's email domain, checking its reputation against external threat intelligence feeds and internal databases. It identifies whether the domain is known for previous phishing attempts or suspicious activity.
‍
3. The workflow integrates user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) to determine if the recipient has interacted with similar threats in the past or if any unusual user behavior is associated with this alert (e.g., a sudden spike in external email communication).
‍
4. The collected data is appended to the alert, adding context such as the domain's trust score, past phishing associations, and user behavior.

By automating these processes, SOCs can avoid the laborious manual data collection process and obtain a clearer picture of possible threats. This process ensures that analysts can promptly concentrate on high-priority incidents, speeds up response times, and decreases manual workloads.

4. Train Your Team and Encourage an Automation-First Mindset

Something important to note is that your team is a massive part of this journey. For an autonomous SOC to succeed, analysts need to be comfortable using AI and automation tools. This doesn’t mean turning everyone into an AI expert, but basic knowledge of machine learning and automation processes is helpful.

Invest in training that shows how AI works, how to customize automation, and how to apply these tools to everyday tasks. Encourage your team to adopt an “automation-first” mindset, constantly asking, “What can be automated here?” This shift helps the team see AI tools as allies, not as replacements.

For example, imagine your SOC team oversees an internal web application. If credential stuffing attacks are a concern, the team should be thinking, “How can we automate our response?” An automated system could detect multiple failed logins from the same IP and trigger actions like blocking the IP, sending an alert, and starting a secondary verification process.

5. Automate Role Provisioning and De-Provisioning

Manually handling user access can be time-consuming and risky. Automating role provisioning for new employees and de-provisioning for those who leave helps keep the process smooth and secure.

Here’s how it could work:

1. When HR inputs the new employee's information into the human resources management system (HRMS), an automated trigger is sent to the SOC’s identity and access management (IAM) system.
‍
2. The employee's department and job title are automatically matched to a predefined role category. This role category dictates a specific set of permissions for their job function.
‍
3. Based on the selected role, an automated workflow provisions access to the required tools and resources, such as email, collaboration platforms, and specialized security or business applications. The process ensures that only the appropriate permissions are granted, adhering to the well-known principle of least privilege.
‍
4. The SOC team is notified of the finished process, an audit trail can then be viewed for compliance verification.
‍
5. When an employee leaves, the system automatically revokes access and updates permissions, minimizing the risk of lingering accounts that could lead to insider threats.

Incorporating automated role provisioning and de-provisioning is a clear game-changer for security and operational efficiency. Adding this type of workflow to your SOC could protect against a whole range of different threats.

Moving Forward with Blink Ops

Progressing to an autonomous SOC isn't just about technology but also smart automation that makes your routine tasks as effective and efficient as possible. This is where Blink Ops comes in. We’re your partner on this journey, providing thousands of pre-built automations and flexible workflows that meet operational needs. 

Blink allows you to automate threat detection, response, and management so your security team can focus on more strategic challenges. Learn what it takes to optimize and scale security operations toward full SOC automation with Blink. Start by improving your cybersecurity posture with Blink Ops today.