What is a Security Operations Center (SOC)?
A SOC provides 24/7 monitoring, threat hunting, and incident response. Building one internally costs $500K+/year. Here's how SOC-as-a-Service changes that equation for SMBs.
A SOC is the team, tools, and processes that defend an organization from cyber threats — around the clock, every day of the year.
A Security Operations Center (SOC) is a centralized function within an organization — or provided as a managed service — that continuously monitors, detects, analyzes, and responds to cybersecurity incidents. SOC analysts use a combination of security tools, threat intelligence, and established procedures to protect the organization's systems and data.
Enterprise-scale SOCs employ dozens to hundreds of analysts across multiple shifts, maintaining 24/7 coverage with specialized roles: tier-1 analysts who triage alerts, tier-2 analysts who investigate confirmed threats, threat hunters who proactively search for undetected adversaries, and incident responders who contain and eradicate active threats. The cost of building and maintaining this capability internally — including staffing, tooling, facilities, and training — typically exceeds $500,000 annually for even the smallest effective SOC.
What a SOC does
- Continuous monitoring of security telemetry from endpoints, networks, email, cloud services, and identity systems
- Alert triage: determining whether alerts represent real threats or false positives
- Incident investigation: understanding the scope, timeline, and techniques of a confirmed attack
- Threat intelligence: incorporating current adversary data into detection rules and hunt hypotheses
- Threat hunting: proactively searching for adversary activity that automated tools don't surface
- Incident response: containing and eradicating active threats
- Detection engineering: improving detection rules based on emerging adversary tradecraft
- Reporting: communicating security posture and incident activity to leadership
SOC-as-a-Service: enterprise operations for SMBs
SOC-as-a-Service (SOCaaS) delivers all of the above as a managed service — providing SMBs with enterprise-level security operations without the cost of building an internal SOC. SignalPoint's SOC-as-a-Service goes further: our analysts are senior certified professionals (GREM, GCFA, CISSP, OSCP), not tier-1 help desk staff. When you call us about an active threat, you speak directly to the analyst investigating your case.
Frequently asked questions.
A minimal effective internal SOC — covering 24/7 monitoring with analyst coverage across three shifts, tooling, and management overhead — typically costs $500,000 to $1 million annually in fully-loaded costs. This includes six to ten analysts at various levels, EDR and SIEM tooling licenses, and a SOC manager. SignalPoint's SOC-as-a-Service delivers equivalent capability at a fraction of that cost.
A SOC is the team and capability — what it's called. MDR is the service model — how it's delivered. An MDR provider delivers SOC-level capability as a managed service. SignalPoint's MDR service provides all core SOC functions: 24/7 monitoring, alert triage, threat hunting, and incident response, delivered by certified analysts.