![[Video] How a Large Financial Services Firm Harnesses Smart SOAR](https://d3security.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/solarnet_blog-smart-soar.jpg)
More than 50% of security operations centers (SOCs) receive 10,000+ alerts per day, according to a recent study published earlier this year. When faced with such high alert volumes, blue teams must prioritize critical alerts over the noise created by false positives.
It’s here that an effective collaboration between Solarnet Communications Ltd, led by its CEO & Founder, Michael Smith, and a large UK-based financial services enterprise [name withheld to maintain confidentiality], has made all the difference. Smith emphasizes, “You want your analysts working on critical alerts…It’s not about reducing your SOC… but what it can do is really help focus your teams in the right areas.”
The cornerstone of their successful partnership lies in the implementation of Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) technology. Specifically, the adoption of D3’s Smart SOAR. It has been a game-changer in transforming the enterprise’s cybersecurity posture, helping streamline its security operations.
Taming Alert Fatigue with SOAR
Alert fatigue is a chronic problem in many SOCs. Smith describes the situation as a “minefield” for security professionals struggling to identify critical alerts. This is where D3’s Smart SOAR shines:
- High-Fidelity Alerting: Smith notes that Smart SOAR was instrumental in ensuring that teams “focus on high-fidelity, critical alerts.” By providing clarity amidst a complex ecosystem of security alerts, Smart SOAR guarantees your analysts work on what genuinely matters.
- False Positive Dismissal: Security Operations Manager Steve Sampana notes how Smart SOAR dramatically reduced alert volumes in his organization. As he describes it, Smart SOAR’s implementation led to “filtering out the noise, canceling out, and auto-closing the non-actionable alerts.” This automatic filtering significantly lightens the workload on SOC teams.
Streamlining Operations and Automating Response
Smart SOAR can do more than just filter out false positives; it fundamentally transforms your organization’s approach to security threats with:
- Simplified Playbooks: Sampana notes that Smart SOAR was instrumental in converting “the overly complex playbooks of our security analysts… into one massive playbook.” Automation of tasks such as escalations to ticketing systems, notifications, and emails, led to a smoother, more efficient response process.
- Cross-Stack Correlation and Enrichment: Smart SOAR helps in correlating alerts and enriching them with context, enabling more informed and swift decisions. As Sampana observes, Smart SOAR “helped us correlate things and make sure that we got enrichment.”
Automated Reporting and New Use Cases
The benefits of Smart SOAR extend beyond security incident response:
- Automated Reporting: Smart SOAR’s robust automated incident reporting capabilities made Sampana and his management team “extremely happy.” Seeing the volume of alerts shrink from thousands to a manageable number was a clear indicator of the technology’s success.
- Innovative SOAR Use Cases: Smart SOAR’s value grew quickly beyond its initial scope. As Sampana puts it, “We ended up moving the scope wider to DLP, to threat intelligence, to vulnerability management, and that just expanded our need for the platform.”
Smart SOAR: Vendor-Agnostic and Flexible
A crucial advantage of Smart SOAR, as emphasized by Smith, is its vendor-agnostic nature. Smith appreciates the fact that Smart SOAR is “agnostic to SIEM and agnostic to security tools and vendors as a whole.” This flexibility allows for more advanced use cases without the need for significant capital investment.
Sampana highlights Smart SOAR’s flexibility and customer-centric approach. He says that D3 Security offers what “other big brands” don’t – the freedom to change things according to your needs. As Sampana puts it, “Whatever you want, whatever you need, they help you with it.”
If you’re looking for a security automation solution that truly molds to your organization’s unique challenges and goals, contact us today to schedule your personalized Smart SOAR demo and take a pivotal step towards streamlined, efficient, and effective SecOps.
