Building a Security Operations Center: 5 Best Practices

Hackers continue to hone their criminal schemes, forcing industry leaders to either level up cybersecurity measures or expose sensitive and valuable data. Last year, a survey indicated that 9 out of 10 American chief information security officers (CISOs) believed their organizations were vulnerable to a cyberattack. Forward-thinking digital security professionals note that building a security operations center (SOC) ranks among the best solutions to protect cloud-based networks and the wide-reaching endpoints used by businesses today.

In a perfect world, funding and building a security operations center would harden an enterprise’s defense to the point that the vast majority of hackers would look elsewhere. However, creating a private SOC comes with certain challenges that most companies cannot realistically overcome. At Red River, we work diligently with industry leaders to find the right cybersecurity solutions. The following highlights SOC best practices, their benefits, obstacles and a pathway forward. We hope this information helps you make an informed decision about protecting your digital assets and business.

Why Is Building a Security Operations Center Essential?

Even a cursory glance at the statistical information involving cybercrime demonstrates why building an SOC is mission-critical. In 2024, cybercrime in the U.S. reached an all-time high, costing companies upwards of $452 billion. By the end of 2025, that figure is expected to exceed $639 billion. Now comes the truly scary part. By 2028, the financial impact of cybercrime on honest businesses will likely triple to $1.82 trillion. The favorite methods used by cybercriminals included distributed denial of service (DDoS), man-in-the-middle (MItM) attacks and 6 in 10 organizations took a hit from some form of ransomware in 2024.

The rising numbers and financial losses associated with cyber-intrusions show that the protection of digital assets is trending in the wrong direction. Too many organizations are knowingly susceptible to malware, ransomware and brute force attacks. Others are simply not keeping pace with evolving criminal tools and methods. Building a security operations center or working with a cybersecurity firm could be the game-changer companies need right now.

What are SOCs and What Do They Do?

Security operations centers are facilities whose sole purpose is to monitor, detect and respond to threats in real-time. They sometimes provide a central physical location where information flows to be assessed. Depending on the company and technology, low- and medium-level threat alerts may be dealt with through automated responses. High-level risks typically require human intervention. These are elements and benefits common to an SOC.

• Centralized Security Management: Security operations centers bring all the cybersecurity facets together under one roof, so to speak. These include 24-hour monitoring, anomaly detection and threat response. An SOC also helps simplify regulatory compliance and reporting.
• Dynamic Threat Detection and Response: Using machine learning and AI, an SOC oversees a non-stop flow of business network traffic. Unusual and suspicious activities are ferreted out from troves of data. The cybersecurity professionals who review potential threats make determinations about appropriate responses.
• Real-Time Threat Response: By funneling critical information into a central hub, automated and human reaction times are streamlined. Because an SOC and the accompanying technologies act in real-time, the responses can be equally fast.
• Consistent Compliance: Building a security operations center and funding it put a powerful deterrent in place. An SOC can be tailored to exceed the data protection regulations of a given industry.

It’s important to keep in mind that building a security operations center does not completely eliminate risk. Each cybersecurity hub provides a pre-determined level of protection, based on the investment into staffing, applications and other factors. While they offer a proactive defensive posture that outpaces enterprise-level antivirus software and firewalls alone, decision-makers are tasked with determining how much risk they are willing to shoulder. One of the obstacles many organizations tussle with is paying for 24/7 cybersecurity personnel, next-gen technologies and utility costs.

1: Planning the SOC

The first step to building a security operations center calls for bringing all the key stakeholders together and having a candid, fact-based conversation. The hard data shows that businesses will continue to take larger financial hits when hackers penetrate their defenses. The number of CISOs who believe their organization is at risk remains far too high, given what’s at stake. But the cost of building an SOC to deliver constant monitoring, detection, automated responses and threat expulsion can prove expensive.

A leadership team can go all-in and fund the SOC, offset costs by working with a third-party Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), or run a higher risk of getting hacked by sticking with less costly measures. If you decide to move forward and build an SOC to protect your company, these are planning phase steps to consider.

Assess Cybersecurity Needs

Conduct an audit of all digital assets, applications and infrastructure and determine to what extent each element requires protection. Some items may call for heightened security, while others may not. A cybersecurity assessment provides invaluable information about what is at risk and how much business professionals are willing to invest to keep data out of harm’s way.

Determine Risk Tolerance

Cybercriminals have no intention of relenting. They will find workarounds for the latest and most proactive security measures. That’s why decision-makers need to understand that nothing is foolproof and some risk will always be present. How much you are willing to invest and the cybersecurity expertise of your staff or MSSP will largely dictate your organization’s risk exposure.

Key Stakeholder Involvement

With the financial resources established and an understanding of data protection needs, integrate key stakeholders into the conversation and rollout. The IT department, management team and department heads all have a role to play. By aligning key stakeholders, companies create a cybersecurity culture that is greater than the sum of the parts.

2: Choose and Implement Technology

Choosing and onboarding SOC technology requires thoughtful consideration. There are no plug-and-play solutions that cover all scenarios. By working with a cybersecurity expert, you can review the levels of data value, necessary protections and infrastructure, and select applications and processes that support goal achievement.

There are a variety of SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) solutions available to help analyze huge swaths of data and detect unusual activities. Some of the standard options involve technologies that provide 24-hour monitoring, machine learning that can be tweaked to recognize real threats from false positives, and those that support streamlined responses and alerts.

3: Staffing Your Security Operations Center

Recruitment has been a thorn in the side when companies move to build their own SOC. Research indicates there are more than 1.1 million cybersecurity professionals holding positions in the industry. There are upwards of 500,000 unfilled U.S. jobs, and the global shortage is expected to exceed 3.5 million by year’s end. The skills gap continues to hamstring organizations when building a security operations center. To overcome this obstacle, incentives, enticing benefits and high salaries are ways employers can onboard a competent SOC staff.

Once an SOC leader is in place, it’s not uncommon to hire staff members who require initial and ongoing training. This aspect of maintaining an SOC comes with time and efficiency costs. Training naturally takes away from hours that could otherwise be spent monitoring, updating systems and responding to credible threats. When SOC staff attrition naturally occurs, the hiring and training process starts all over again. Although in-house cybersecurity recruitment, hiring and training can be accomplished, it comes at a premium.

4: Incident Response Planning

This may be something of a simplification, but there are two basic goals of a cybersecurity posture. The first is to harden an organization’s attack surface to such a degree that garden variety hackers and those with medium-level skills won’t bother attempting to breach the network. Most cybercriminals are financially motivated, relatively lazy and seek out low-hanging fruit they can pluck without spending much time or energy.

The second fundamental goal is to create a robust defense that frustrates high-level threat actors who are determined to penetrate a company’s network. Advanced persistent threats are typically sophisticated, well-funded miscreants who engage in corporate and nation-state espionage or look for big-money scores. Information regarding trade secrets, healthcare records, bank accounts and other sensitive data is often worth their efforts. The same holds true for ransomware attacks because organizations are held hostage until they pay for decryption codes.

Deterring and frustrating online thieves can be accomplished by having a proactive SOC in place. But there may come a day when an unsuspecting staff member makes a mistake, an insider goes rogue or an advanced persistent threat devises a new scheme to orchestrate a data breach. That’s when you’ll need a fallback position outlined in a company-wide cybersecurity policy. Key stakeholders will need to know their particular role in defending the organization and best practices involving how to secure information, applications and other digital assets. In other words, building a security operations center doesn’t mean your entity is immune to risk. It does, however, significantly reduce the chance of losing the fight to cybercriminals.

5: Ongoing Maintenance and Continuous Improvement

Developing and implementing a governance framework is critical to ensuring the SOC you build functions proficiently at all times. This normally means not only threat intelligence monitoring but also reviewing the systems and threat landscape. The use of AI, machine learning and other forms of automation has proven beneficial in terms of cost reductions and proactive results. Still, SOC leaders and staff members will be tasked with continually improving response times, technologies and fallback positions that can prevent an organization’s data from being held hostage.

Challenges of Building an SOC

The two most significant issues for a company building a security operations center are recruiting competent cybersecurity professionals and cost. Some peg the cost of staffing alone at $500,000 annually, after making a major investment into infrastructure. These are other challenges companies face when building and maintaining their own SOC.

Changing Threat Landscape

The staff of each SOC must keep pace with the evolving cybersecurity threat landscape. This generally requires team members to take seminars, read up on the latest data protection theories and follow cases of major security failures. The MGM casino hack is a prime example of how an otherwise comprehensive cybersecurity program can run afoul.

False Alarm Fatigue

The professionals who oversee an SOC field a significant number of threat alerts. When systems are tuned to identify subtle anomalies, the sheer volume can prove overwhelming. Unlike machines, real people get fatigued, and that invites human error. Either companies can hire enough people to minimize false alarm fatigue, or they can outsource to a properly staffed MSSP.

Regulatory Compliance

Establishing a fully funded and staffed SOC comes with the added requirement of regulatory compliance. The people handling day-to-day processes must operate within a specific data protection framework. Federal, state and international rules such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Pentagon’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) and the California Consumer Privacy Act, among many others, are regulations that may need to be rigorously observed. This means training SOC staff members about the appropriate methods for protecting digital information and reporting data compromises.

Alternatives to Building An SOC

Not every company can afford the financial and human resource expense that comes with building a security operations center. While a SOC delivers high-level data protections that include detecting, deterring and repelling threat actors, the challenges of staffing, educating and maintaining the program can prove untenable.

By contrast, an MSSP partner provides scalable access to superior SOC protections. Outsourcing to a firm that specializes in cybersecurity allows businesses to tap into the knowledge and expertise of professionals they might otherwise struggle to recruit. By utilizing security operations centers as a service (SOCaaS), company leaders get the necessary data protection without the challenges.

Make Red River Your MSSP Partner

At Red River, we provide proactive cybersecurity at a scalable rate. We have the expertise and SOC infrastructure to meet your digital security and regulatory compliance needs. If you’d like to learn more about our SOCaaS solutions, contact us today. Let’s get the process started.