There’s a range of challenges Small to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) are currently dealing with when it comes to safeguarding their online operations, including the rising sophistication and frequency of cyber attacks, the growing rate at which SMBs are being targeted by cyber criminals, and a lack of resources to address these issues or implement proactive strategies. Alongside this, the average cost of a successful attack has increased, at $46,000 for Australian small businesses and $97,200 for medium businesses on average. Comprehensive cyber security measures are more important than ever, so how can you protect your SMB 24/7/365 in this evolving digital landscape?
Luckily, there’s an answer: a Security Operations Centre (SOC). If you’re a Ballarat business, keep reading to learn what a SOC is, how we can use this service to elevate your defences online, and how this advanced solution can cost-effectively fit into your cyber security budget.
What is a SOC?
The purpose of a SOC is to identify, detect, and respond to cyber threats 24/7. This is achieved by monitoring data across your IT infrastructure, such as endpoints, your network, and cloud services. This approach ensures risks can be contained and dealt with before they do serious damage, and allows you to significantly strengthen your cyber posture to keep up with evolving threats. Proactive managed detection and response helps to keep data secure, safeguards your operations from downtime, and protects your business’ reputation.
A SOC can be set up as an in-house team utilising technology and processes, or you can work with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) who can implement and expertly manage SOC-as-a-service for your business – we’ll take a closer look at this later.
Benefits of a SOC
So how can a SOC benefit your business? This service fortifies your security with innovative features including:
Comprehensive monitoring
24/7 continuous monitoring ensures your business is safeguarded with real-time threat detection, which is critical to stop cyber criminals in their tracks.
Threat intelligence and hunting
Real-time threat intelligence monitoring ensures informed, proactive action in the face of evolving and increasingly complex threats.
Breach detection
Breach detection identifies sophisticated threats that have managed to evade firewalls and antivirus, ensuring they’re stopped before they can affect your business.
Choosing between in-house SOC or SOC-as-a-service
Setting up an in-house SOC involves significant upfront and long-term investment, including hiring and retaining a team of expert staff who need to take on demanding schedules, ensuring they stay up to date with ongoing training, and purchasing and managing cyber security tools.
These factors make setting up an in-house team basically impossible for SMBs, and have seen SOC-as-a-service become a popular choice that provides the same level of protection. This is a critical service, as SMBs typically have lower cyber security resources than larger organisations – something cyber criminals are known to exploit.
Working with an MSP to secure this service, you can:
- Expect much lower setup and ongoing costs, and benefit from a predictable monthly fee.
- Count on a wide range of in depth and up to date knowledge to protect your business. This is provided by the MSP’s team, made up of experts equipped with diverse cyber security specialities.
How can Lateral Plains help?
Do you want to strengthen your SMB’s defences and stop threats with 24/7 continuous monitoring, threat intelligence and hunting, breach detection, and rapid implementation?
At Lateral Plains, our SOC service detects and responds to malicious activity across your IT infrastructure, so you stay safer online. Get in touch with our friendly local team today here to chat about how our SOC can support your Ballarat business.