The state of SOCs in a post-COVID world [Q&A]>
Beta News – Ian Barker
A new report from Respond Software and the Ponemon Institute takes a look at the state of security operations centers (SOCs) and how they’re coping.
We spoke to Chris Triolo, vice president at Respond Software, to find out more about the report and get his views on how organizations can make the most of their SOCs.
CT: Prior to COVID-19, we were seeing very high SOC workloads with overworked, overloaded and burned-out analysts. >From our latest research report, itâs evident that this trend has continued in the midst of the pandemic at an even larger scale. In fact, 85 percent of the survey respondents rate the pain of working in their organizationâs SOC as painful or very painful, and 80 percent of these respondents cite that the primary reason for the pain is that they experience burnout from an increasing workload. BN: How has this impacted staff morale and turnover?
>From our experience and research, most analysts do not typically hold tenure at their job for very long. According to our report, an average of five analysts are expected to be hired in 2021, yet three analysts will be fired or resign in one year. We have seen that the usual length of stay at their organizations is short, about a little more than two years.
BN: Remote working is likely here to stay even after the pandemic. What challenges does this pose for SOCs?
CT: We believe the SOC is most successful in-person. As I mentioned earlier, collaboration, on-the-job training, mentoring and many others are compelling reasons to have the SOC back in-person in the office setting. e have found that more than one-third of SOCs in our research study have changed to a remote work environment, and 51 percent of these respondents have stated their work performance has been impacted as a result. BN: What can businesses do to make the most of their investment in SOCs?
CT: It is imperative that SOCs retool and automate. In fact, our report findings show that SOC stress is increasing and one of the main reasons for a high turnover rate. Approximately 75 percent of respondents agreed that SOC analysts burn out quickly because of the high-pressure environment and workload.
Link: https://betanews.com/2021/01/12/socs-post-covid-world-qa/