Exabeam, a Smarter SIEM company, has released its annual ‘2020 State of the SOC report,’ examining the processes and effectiveness of corporate security operations centres (SOCs). This year’s study reveals that 82% of SOCs are confident in the ability to detect cyberthreats, despite just 22% of frontline workers tracking mean time to detection (MTTD), which helps determine hacker dwell time. Compounding this unfounded confidence, 40% of organisations still struggle with SOC staff shortages and finding qualified people to fill the cybersecurity skills gap.
The survey, conducted among 295 respondents across the US, the UK, Canada, Germany and Australia, was also fielded to determine how analysts and SOC management view key aspects of their operations, hiring and staffing, retention, technologies, training and funding.
“From 2018-2019, we learned that dwell time – or the time between when a compromise first occurs and when it is first detected – has grown. Based on this, it is surprising for SOCs to report such inflated confidence in detecting cyberthreats,” said Steve Moore, Chief Security Strategist at Exabeam. “We see great progress in the SOC with attention paid to employee wellbeing, measures for better communication and more. However, disparate perceptions of the SOCs’ effectiveness could be dangerously interpreted by the C-suite as assurances that the company is well protected and secure, when it’s not.”
