With the ongoing barrage of new attacks and emerging dangers, one might argue that every day is an exciting day in the security operations centre (SOC). However, today's SOC teams are experiencing one of the most compelling and transformative changes in how we detect and respond to cybersecurity threats. Innovative security organisations are attempting to modernise SOCs with extended detection and response (XDR) platforms that incorporate the most recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) into the defensive effort.
XDR systems combine security telemetry from several domains, such as identities, endpoints, software-as-a-service apps, email, and cloud workloads, to provide detection and response features in a single platform. As a result, security teams employing XDR have greater visibility across the company than ever before. But that's only half the tale. The combination of this unprecedented insight and an AI-powered SOC aid can allow security teams to operate at the pace required to turn the tables on potential attackers.
Innovative security organisations need to have a strategic implementation plan that considers the future in order to effectively leverage today's AI capabilities and provide the foundation for tomorrow's breakthroughs. This is because the industry is evolving rapidly.
XDR breadth matters
Unlike traditional automated detection and blocking solutions, which frequently rely on a single indicator of compromise, XDR platforms employ AI to correlate cross-domain security signals that analyse a full attack and identify threats with high confidence. AI's greater fidelity improves the signal-to-noise ratio, resulting in fewer false positives for manual investigation and triage. Notably, the larger the dataset on which the AI is operating, the more effective it will be; therefore, XDR's inherent breadth is critical.
An effective XDR strategy should identify and account for high-risk regions, cybersecurity maturity, modern architecture and technologies, and budgetary limits, among other things. While adoption should be gradual to minimise operational impact, organisations must also examine how to acquire the broadest XDR coverage possible in order to make the most of AI's capabilities.
Create AI-Confident teams
The purpose of AI is not to replace humans in your SOC, but to enable them. If your team lacks faith in the tools they use they will be unable to fully realise the platform's potential. As previously noted, minimising false positives will help increase user trust over time, but it is also critical to provide operational transparency so that everyone understands where data is coming from and what actions have been taken.
XDR platforms must provide SOC teams with complete control over investigating, remediating, and bringing assets back online when they are required. Tightly integrating threat detection and automatic attack disruption capabilities into existing workflows will speed up triage and provide a clear view of threats and remedial operations across the infrastructure.
Stay vigilant
The indicators of attack and compromise are continually evolving. An effective, long-term XDR plan will meet the ongoing requirement for rapid analysis and continuous vetting of the most recent threat intelligence. Implementation roadmaps should address how to facilitate the incorporation of timely threat intelligence and include flexibility to grow or augment teams when complex incidents demand additional expertise or support.
As more organisations look to engage in XDR and AI to improve their security operations, taking a careful, future-focused approach to deployment will allow them to better use today's AI capabilities while also being prepared for tomorrow's breakthroughs. After all, successful organisations will not rely solely on artificial intelligence to stay ahead of attackers. They will plan AI investments to keep them relevant.
