Detection is considered a standard investment and first line of defense, so today’s enterprises are expected to have at least six to eight detection tools. However, security leaders have a hard time justifying dedicating resources to their superiors further downstream in the alert lifecycle.
As a result, most organizations’ security investments are asymmetric and robust detection tools coupled with a last line of defense: an under-resourced SOC.
A recent case study shows how a company using a standardized SOC prevented sophisticated phishing attacks that evaded key email security tools. This case study involved a cross-company phishing campaign targeting executives at multiple companies. Eight different email security tools from these organizations failed to detect the attack, and the phishing email ended up in the executives’ inboxes. However, each organization’s SOC team detected the attack shortly after an employee reported a suspicious email.
My SOC was successful, but why did all eight detection tools fail in the same way?
What all these organizations have in common is a balanced investment across the alert lifecycle that doesn’t ignore the SOC.
This article examines how investing in a SOC is essential for organizations that already allocate significant resources to discovery tools. Additionally, balanced SOC investments are critical to maximizing the value of existing detection investments.
Discovery tools and SOC operate in parallel worlds
Understanding this fundamental disconnect explains how security gaps arise.
The detection tool works in milliseconds. They must make instantaneous decisions on millions of signals every day. They don’t have time to consider nuances. Speed is essential. Without it, your network would go down as all emails, files, and connection requests would be held for analysis.
The detection tool expands. Potential threats are initially identified and isolated, but they fail to understand the big picture. Meanwhile, SOC teams operate with a 30,000-foot field of view. When an alert reaches an analyst, detection tools lack time and context.
As a result, the SOC approaches alerts from a different perspective.
You can analyze behavioral patterns, such as why an executive who normally works in London suddenly logs in from the data center’s IP address. You can stitch data together between tools. You can view clean reputation email domains and subsequent authentication attempts and user reports. You can identify patterns that only make sense when looked at collectively, such as targeting just finance professionals and timing them around the payroll cycle.
Three critical risks of an underfunded SOC
First, it can be more difficult for executives to identify the root of the problem. CISOs and budget owners in organizations that deploy a variety of detection tools often assume that their investments will keep them safe. SOCs, on the other hand, experience a different situation as they are overwhelmed by noise and lack the resources to properly investigate real threats. While the fight against SOC is fought behind closed doors, security leaders find it difficult to demonstrate the need for additional investment in SOC because detection is clearly expensive.
Second, asymmetry overwhelms the last line of defense. Heavy investments in multiple detection tools generate thousands of alerts that flood the SOC every day. With SOC funding running low, analysts become goalkeepers, facing hundreds of shots at once and having to make split-second decisions under immense pressure.
Third, the ability to identify subtle threats is impaired. When a SOC becomes overwhelmed with alerts, it loses its ability to perform in-depth investigation efforts. Threats that evade detection are those that detection tools cannot detect in the first place.
From temporary fixes to sustainable SOC operations
When your detection tools generate hundreds of alerts every day, adding a few more SOC analysts is about as effective as trying to salvage a sinking ship with buckets. The traditional alternative has been to outsource to an MSSP or MDR and assign an external team to handle the overflow.
But for many, the trade-offs remain too great, including high ongoing costs, shallow research by analysts unfamiliar with the environment, delays in coordination, and communication breakdowns. Outsourcing does not solve the imbalance. You’re just passing the burden onto someone else.
Today, AI SOC platforms are becoming the preferred choice for organizations with lean SOC teams seeking efficient, cost-effective, and scalable solutions. AI SOC platforms operate at an investigation layer where contextual reasoning occurs, automating the triage of alerts and surfacing only high-fidelity incidents after assigning context.
With the help of an AI SOC, false positive rates are often reduced by more than 90%, saving analysts hundreds of hours each month. This automated coverage enables small in-house teams to provide coverage 24/7 without additional staffing or outsourcing. The company featured in this case study invested in this approach through Radiant Security, an agent-based AI SOC platform.
Two ways your SOC investment will pay off, now and in the future
Investing in a SOC makes the cost of discovery tools worthwhile. A detection tool’s effectiveness depends on its ability to investigate alerts. If 40% of your alerts aren’t investigated, you’re not getting the most value out of all the detection tools you have. Without sufficient SOC capacity, you end up paying for underutilized discovery capabilities. The unique perspective of the final line becomes increasingly important. SOC becomes increasingly important as detection tools fail more frequently. As attacks become more sophisticated, detection requires more context. The SOC perspective means that only the SOC can connect these dots and see the big picture.
3 questions to ask when determining your next security budget
Are your security investments symmetrical? First, assess the imbalance in resource allocation. The first sign of asymmetric security is that your SOC is receiving more alerts than it can handle. If analysts are overwhelmed with alerts, it means the front line is outpacing the back line. Is your SOC a certified safety net? Every SOC leader should ask if the SOC is prepared to capture what passes through it if detection fails. Many organizations don’t ask this because they don’t think discovery is the responsibility of the SOC. But when a detection tool fails, responsibility changes. Are you underutilizing your existing tools? Many organizations find that their detection tools generate valuable signals that no one has time to investigate. Asymmetry means a lack of ability to act on what you already have.
Key takeaways from Radiant Security
Most security teams have the opportunity to allocate resources to maximize ROI from current detection investments, support future growth, and strengthen protection. Organizations that invest in discovery tools but ignore their SOC create blind spots and burnout.
Radiant Security, the agent-based AI SOC platform featured in the case study, has achieved success through balanced security investments. Radiant operates at the SOC investigation layer, automatically triaging all alerts, reducing false positives by approximately 90%, and analyzing threats at machine speed like a top analyst. With over 100 integrations with existing security tools and one-click response capabilities, Radiant helps lean security teams investigate known and unknown alerts without adding redundant headcount. Strong security makes enterprise-grade SOC capabilities available to organizations of all sizes.
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