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The Unfulfilled Promise of SOAR: How Agentic AI is Revolutionizing Security Operations Centers



The cybersecurity industry has long awaited a solution to Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR)'s unfulfilled promises. A new technology called Agentic AI has emerged as a potential game-changer, promising to address the fundamental challenges of SOC automation that have hindered previous solutions. With its advanced generative capabilities, Agentic AI can automate complex tasks, providing real-time insights and enabling organizations to respond quickly and effectively to emerging threats.


  • SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) has failed to deliver on its promise of revolutionizing Security Operations Centers (SOCs), leaving them with many of the same challenges.
  • Despite advancements in technology, SOAR's core promise of SOC automation remains unfulfilled due to the complexity of SOC work.
  • Co-pilot tools like ChatGPT can assist humans but still rely on them for decision-making and execution.
  • Agentic AI is a potential solution to SOAR's shortcomings, offering fully executed work units and exponential productivity gains.
  • Agentic AI has the potential to transform the cybersecurity landscape by automating complex tasks and providing real-time insights.



  • The cybersecurity landscape has undergone significant transformations in recent years, with new technologies and solutions emerging to tackle the ever-evolving threats that plague organizations. One such technology that has gained significant attention is Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), which was introduced with the promise of revolutionizing Security Operations Centers (SOCs) through automation, reducing manual workloads and enhancing efficiency. Despite three generations of technology and 10 years of advancements, SOAR hasn't fully delivered on its potential, leaving SOCs still grappling with many of the same challenges.

    To understand why SOAR has fallen short, it's essential to delve into its history and evolution. The first generation of SOAR platforms emerged in the mid-2010s, featuring static playbooks, complex implementations (often involving coding), and high maintenance demands. Few organizations adopted them beyond simple use cases, like phishing triage. However, with time, the technology evolved, and the second generation of SOAR platforms introduced no-code, drag-and-drop editors and extensive playbook libraries, reducing the need for engineering resources and improving adoption.

    The latest generation of SOAR platforms, which emerged in 2022, leverages generative AI (LLMs) to automate playbook creation, further reducing the technical burden. Despite these advancements, SOAR's core promise of SOC automation remains unfulfilled for reasons that will be discussed shortly. Instead, each generation has primarily improved operational ease and reduced the engineering burden of SOAR, but not addressed the fundamental challenges of SOC automation.

    One of the primary reasons why SOAR hasn't succeeded is that SOC work is made up of a multitude of activities and tasks, which are different across every SOC. Generally, SOC automation tasks involved in alert handing fall into two categories: thinking tasks and doing tasks. Thinking tasks involve figuring out if something is real, determining what happened, understanding scope and impact, creating a plan for response, etc., while doing tasks involve taking response actions, notifying stakeholders, updating systems of records, etc.

    Co-pilot tools like ChatGPT and bolt-on chatbots can assist humans by providing relevant information, but they leave decision-making and execution to the user. The human must ask questions, interpret the results, and implement a plan. While co-pilots improve productivity by making it easier to interact with data, they still rely on humans to drive the entire process.

    However, there is a new technology that has emerged as a potential solution to SOAR's unfulfilled promises: Agentic AI. This advanced artificial intelligence system emulates human processes, from alert interpretation to decision-making, delivering fully executed work units. By acting as an autonomous AI SOC analyst, Agentic AI completes entire workflows, allowing SOC teams to focus on higher-level decision-making, leading to exponential productivity gains and vastly more efficient operations.

    Agentic AI has the potential to revolutionize the way SOCs operate, addressing the fundamental challenges of SOC automation that have hindered previous solutions. By leveraging advanced generative capabilities, Agentic AI can automate complex tasks, providing real-time insights and enabling organizations to respond quickly and effectively to emerging threats.

    The implications of this technology are significant, with the potential to transform the cybersecurity landscape forever. As SOCs continue to face new challenges and emerging threats, it's essential that they adopt innovative solutions like Agentic AI. By doing so, organizations can unlock unprecedented levels of efficiency, productivity, and security, ensuring their networks and systems remain protected in an ever-evolving threat environment.

    In conclusion, the unfulfilled promise of SOAR has led to a new era of innovation, with Agentic AI emerging as a potential game-changer. As SOC teams continue to grapple with the challenges of automation, it's essential that they explore this advanced technology, unlocking its full potential to revolutionize their operations and transform the cybersecurity landscape forever.



    Related Information:

  • https://thehackernews.com/2024/09/agentic-ai-in-socs-solution-to-soars.html

  • https://www.sepe.gr/en/it-technology/cybersecurity/22482289/agentic-ai-in-socs-a-solution-to-soar-s-unfulfilled-promises/



  • Published: Thu Sep 26 05:03:51 2024 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M













         


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