Embracing AI Analysts to Strengthen In-House SecOps Teams

With artificial intelligence technology rapidly advancing, it’s now possible to automate even more of the repetitive, manual, and even skilled tasks that consume the time of overloaded security operations analysts. Especially the “grunt work” that leads to alert fatigue.

Organizations often face the dilemma of outsourcing their security operations centers (SOCs) or investing in in-house solutions to keep up with the increasing volume and sophistication of cybersecurity threats. While outsourced SOCs provide expertise and resources, they can also be expensive, prone to error, and less efficient due to resource shortages and the challenge of dealing with multiple client environments. 

By leveraging AI Analysts as an extension of your SOC team, you can reduce reliance on outsourced SOCs and maintain a robust security posture. This blog post will explore why now is the perfect time to start using AI Analysts to augment your team and deliver cost-effective, cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions.

1. Overcoming Outsourced SOC Limitations

Outsourced SOCs, despite their expertise, may face limitations due to human error, resource shortages, and the complexity of managing multiple client environments. AI Analysts can help address these issues by automating repetitive tasks, reducing the risk of human error, and providing consistent, efficient security solutions across diverse environments.

2. Advanced AI Capabilities

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are making AI Analysts more reliable and effective than ever. We’ve already seen the incredible things ChatGPT can do. These technologies can accurately identify and prioritize security incidents, triage events, and automate aspects of incident response, delivering exceptional results with minimal human intervention.

Here’s a glance at what a security operations workflow would typically look like, compared to a fully automated process would that autonomously triages alerts for your security team:

3. Cost-Effective Solution

Integrating AI Analysts into your existing SOC team can be a highly cost-effective alternative to outsourcing. AI Analysts can significantly reduce labor costs by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, allowing you to maintain a lean, efficient in-house team without compromising security capabilities as your business grows. For organizations that can’t afford to expand their team or face budget cuts, automation is an ideal solution to ensure a smart security operations team can effectively address every security alert and respond to incidents quickly.

4. Seamless Integration

Modern AI Analyst solutions are designed to integrate seamlessly with your existing security infrastructure, making it easier than ever to incorporate AI-driven capabilities into your SOC. By working with your current systems, AI Analysts can enhance your team’s effectiveness without requiring extensive retraining or costly overhauls.

5. Improved Efficiency and Scalability

AI Analysts can process vast amounts of data at incredible speeds, enabling them to handle large volumes of security events easily. This increased efficiency allows your in-house team to scale its capabilities as your organization grows without investing in additional human resources. Artificial intelligence can analyze high volumes of alerts, files, and even memory forensics at scale. This ensures your SOC analysts have all the critical information they need, without requiring the advanced skills or time that would otherwise be required for tasks like memory analysis.

6. Real-Time Threat Detection

AI Analysts can analyze and correlate data from various sources in real time, providing your team with valuable insights and alerts as soon as threats are detected. This rapid response capability helps your in-house team stay one step ahead of potential cyberattacks, mitigating risks and minimizing damage. While outsourced providers may have analysts that monitor alerts 24/7, automated alert triage and investigations can deliver immediate analysis, answers, and recommendations. 

7. Continuous Learning and Adaptation

AI Analysts are designed to learn and adapt over time, refining their knowledge and improving their ability to identify and respond to threats. This continuous learning enables your team to stay ahead of the constantly evolving cybersecurity landscape, ensuring your organization remains protected against emerging threats. 

8. Empowering Human Analysts

By automating routine tasks, AI Analysts free up your human analysts to focus on more complex issues that require expert judgment. This enhances your team’s overall performance and provides a more engaging and rewarding work environment for your analysts. Technology can sift through noise, false positives, and extract answers about confirmed threats. This frees up more people from the grind of monitoring and triaging alerts.

By automatically collecting evidence, and using artificial intelligence to investigate and triage alerts, we can ensuring that our security teams are focused on proactive security activities and responding to the serious threats.

Learning to Trust “AI Analysts” to Do Work for Your Team 

Now is the time to start testing and trusting AI Analysts, incorporating the new capabilities for automation that act like an extension of your in-house SOC team. AI-powered solutions like the Autonomous SOC Platform enable teams to reduce reliance on outsourced security operations centers, which don’t give you deep analysis on escalated threats and lead to inefficiencies. 

AI Analysts offer a cost-effective, scalable, and efficient solution that empowers your human analysts while keeping organizations protected against ever-evolving cybersecurity threats. This new opportunity for automation can future-proof your security operations, integrating AI Analysts into your team to maintain a strong security posture. 

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Jim McDonough

Jim McDonough is the Vice President of Global Sales at Intezer. Outside of work, you're likely to catch him running on a trail or in a marathon.