E-Business
The Importance of Security Operations Centers to Contemporary Organizations
As organizations grow more dependent on IT solutions, they have also become potential subjects of cyber threats. These threats vary in terms of the risk they portend for their targets; the more lethal ones could inflict costly damage on their victims.
Businesses, public sector concerns, and other institutions have responded by taking proactive measures to prevent these threats from being actualized. In some cases, the creation of a Security Operations Center sits at the core of their strategy.
What Is a Security Operations Center?
A Security Operations Center (SOC) is a unit that’s built to tackle the security issues of an organization. It consists of the personnel, technologies, and processes that are required to maintain the organization’s security status.
The personnel at a Security Operations Center include members of the IT team who are adequately skilled at identifying and dealing with threats. The SOC’s processes involve monitoring, detecting, analyzing, and responding to threats.
Technologies used at a SOC are built to scour networks, servers, endpoints, websites, and databases for signs that such systems have been compromised. They also include tools that help with reporting such incidents.
In other words, the SOC serves as a point at which events logged throughout an institution are monitored. This setup works through the data and determines whether there are threats, and how to defend the organization against such threats where they exist.
The Functions of a Security Operations Center
As has already been hinted, a Security Operations Center needs to have visibility into the various aspects of the assets it is supposed to protect. It should also track the networked interaction between these assets, including software, endpoints, and servers.
Also part of the SOC’s mandate is preparation for possible attacks. To do this successfully, teams within the SOC will have to keep tabs on the latest developments in cybersecurity, such as emerging threats and best practices for defending systems against them. Vulnerabilities should be patched, firewalls updated, and applications secured.
Monitoring systems with tools such as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) is standard practice for SOCs. The EDR continuously collects and analyzes activity data from endpoints throughout the organization, and provides automated responses to perceived irregularities within these data that may signal an imminent attack. SIEM similarly gives SOC personnel insights into activities in their IT environment.
In addition to these, the Security Operations Center also ranks security alerts, discerns genuine risks from false positives, responds to threats (by shutting down or isolating compromised endpoints, etc.), and carries out recovery and remediation following an attack.
The Structure of a Security Operations Center
Given its various duties, the SOC is ideally staffed with multiple IT security professionals, each playing a specific role within the setup.
A manager, who leads the team, should coordinate and oversee the processes ongoing within the SOC. They should also be able to fill any of the roles there. An analyst collects and analyzes past data or data generated after a breach has occurred.
Another role, the investigator, involves assessing a breach and answering questions about how and why the event occurred. They may also take on the role of the incidence responder, who takes action to minimize the impact of breaches.
One person could play multiple roles; it all depends on how big the organization affected is.
The structure of the SOC should be documented, with each role defined, and questions around responsibility and collaboration answered. Security processes that ought to be defined include monitoring, alerting, escalation, investigation, incident logging, compliance monitoring, and reporting.
Benefits of a Security Operations Center
An immediately perceivable benefit of the SOC is that knowledge is centralized. Personnel at the SOC gain a bird’s eye view of their organization’s networks and are better able to spot vulnerabilities. This setup lets them share vital information so that their work is more coordinated and ultimately effective.
This approach to security may reduce running costs as well. With the cybersecurity team and infrastructure in one location, resources are concentrated in one place at a given time. Because they are in a single location, organizations don’t have to spend more to maintain various offices across different locations.
Centralization may also help improve collaboration between members of the IT security team. They can leverage each other’s expertise and experience, and develop solutions that help their parent company in many ways.
With greater team collaboration comes improved response times. The use of advanced tools for threat detection and monitoring strengthens this benefit even more. With proactive network and endpoint monitoring tools, it’s even possible to protect against cyber threats before they materialize.
Finally, there’s the round-the-clock protection that SOC affords. Because attacks aren’t limited to working hours during weekdays, SOCs are built to monitor for potential vulnerabilities every hour of every day.
An Option Worth Considering: Managed Security Operations Center
Not all businesses are able to set up a functional SOC. The expertise, experience, tools, and space required to run it may constitute a drain on resources, besides forcing the business to take on additional tasks to its core operations.
Managed SOCs are a solution to this problem. Cybersecurity firms often offer this as a service to their client organizations. This means that businesses don’t need to have a large department dealing with security issues. Signing up with a reputable cybersecurity firm will allow them to have a SOC with that firm, and focus on their core operations.
Layer3 can help you manage your company’s IT security. We do this by leveraging the expertise and experience of our cybersecurity experts, and our knowledge of the present and emerging risks that enterprises face in today’s world. These, combined with our advanced threat detection and security intelligence tools and systems, will take care of the things you would typically assign to an in-house SOC. This guarantees cost savings for your organization and lets you devote more time and resources to your principal operations.
If you would like to learn more about our IT security service offerings, you can get in touch with us here.
Nvidia, world leader in accelerated computing, lost about $589 billion of its market value on Monday amid rise in DeepSeek.
DeepSeek, a private Chinese company founded in July 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, is an open-source large language model that relies on what is known as “inference-time computing,” meaning “they activate only the most relevant portions of their model for each query, and that saves money and computation power”
Nvidia, on the other hand provides a variety of products and services, including GPUs, AI software, and cloud gaming.
According to Bloomberg, the loss was driven by the company’s shares plummeting by 17 percent during midday trading on Wall Street.
The steep decline reverberated across global markets due to Nvidia’s substantial influence on major indices.
In the United States, the S&P 500 fell by 2.3 percent, while the Nasdaq 100 dropped 3.6 percent.
European markets were similarly affected, with Frankfurt and Paris stock exchanges closing in the red, while London finished flat and Asian stock markets recorded losses.
Technology giants like Microsoft and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, also saw their shares decline, however, Meta managed to buck the trend, trading in the green.
Nvidia has been a major beneficiary of the influx in spending on artificial intelligence (AI) because of the company’s semiconductors, which are essential for AI technologies to work efficiently.
However, the publication said the recent emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese chatbot platform, appears to have shaken up the AI industry.
DeepSeek recently overtook ChatGPT as the top-rated free app on Apple’s US app store.
In 2022, the US imposed restrictions to limit exports of advanced GPU chips to China.
However, DeepSeek’s researchers claimed they trained their latest model on Nvidia’s H800 chips.
The training was approximately $6 million, which is a fraction of the usual expense for developing high-end AI systems.
DeepSeek’s breakthrough in the AI industry comes as the US intensifies its efforts to maintain dominance in the field with the unveiling of the Stargate Project.
The Project, which was announced by President Donald Trump, is a strategic collaboration between Oracle, Japan’s SoftBank, and OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.
OpenAI stated that the initiative would strengthen US AI capabilities, create thousands of jobs, and enhance national security.
By 2027 mobile app usage will decrease by 25 per cent due to AI assistants, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone users will turn to AI assistants, such as Apple Intelligence, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Meta AI, and others to replace apps for many functions.
In addition to the impact of AI assistants, apps will be consolidated across separate brands and companies, creating mobile app partnerships or consortiums to reach more users per app at scale and defray the cost of creation and maintenance.
“CMOs should begin scenario planning for the impacts of decreased mobile app usage,” said Emily Weiss, senior principal for the Gartner Marketing Practice.
“Brands with low app engagement and retention will likely be first impacted – this will be a positive development for brands that are not overly reliant on driving revenue via apps as app development costs will decrease.
Other brands may be severely impacted by the disintermediation of users turning to AI assistants for services.
The loss of app users will also result in the loss of first-party data collection and the ability to reach fewer users via mobile push notifications,” she added.
By 2026, over 1/3 of web content will be created for the purposes of Gen-AI powered search.
According to Gartner’s 2024 CMO Spend Survey of 395 respondents between February and March 2024, the average CMO allocated almost a quarter of their digital marketing budget to search.
Other than end users directly visiting a website, search currently drives more traffic to the average commercial enterprise website than any other referral source.
Given this, a loss of search driven traffic due to algorithmic shifts by major search engines would result in tangible, negative commercial impact to any organisation.
“CMOs will need to direct their teams to hire talent with a strong understanding of how GenAI, and broader AI influences, impacts the performance of their content in search algorithms,” said Weiss.
“It will be important to upskill the function by investing in search and content talent with AI skillsets. These associates will need to have familiarity with creating or optimising content to train and rank within evolving search algorithms,” Weiss added.
By 2028 digital marketers will move 30 per cent of their paid social budget to support advertising and partnerships on subscription-based channels.
It is becoming more challenging for CMOs to maintain, let alone grow, their reach and engagement among consumers.
This is especially true as consumers shift their tech and media behaviors away from social media, to other platforms and subscription based channels.
Gartner’s 2024 CMO Spend survey found that since 2022, paid social has maintained the highest budget allocation for all digital media spend.
In 2024, B2C Marketing leaders reported allocating 14.3 per cent for their digital channel budget to social media advertising (an increase from 12.3% in 2023).
“Closed group communities and subscription channels offer a potential alternative for social media weary consumers and content creators who want to do more than feed the algorithm,” said Weiss.
“Brands can leverage closed-group subscription channels – such as Substack, Patreon, and Discord – and the professional creators on them to reach relevant target audiences who are already engaging with content they self-selected into consuming.”
By 2027, 85 per cent of customer data will be xollected from automated interactions or those led by AI agents. Current AI models, such as large language models (LLMs), lack the agency to autonomously execute tasks and adapt in complex environments.
However, as new levels of intelligence are added, new AI agents are poised to quickly become more capable and reliable as brands seek to address customer facing use cases.
“There will be more AI agents than people, so while current approaches require humans in the loop, this idea will quickly become antiquated.
“Marketers will need to determine when and how they can trust AI agents to act on behalf of the brand and customers across key areas,” said Weiss.
National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has kicked off a three-day training program for 388 personnel aimed at enhancing the National Identification Number (NIN) enrolment process across the country.
The training, tagged “Refresher Training of Trainers on NIN Integration to the National Social Register: Technical and hands-on devices and field operations and procedures”, is in collaboration with the National Social Safety-Net Coordinating Office.
The training is also to equip personnel with the necessary skills to efficiently handle the complexities of enrolment processes
In her address at the event held in Port Harcourt on Monday, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, director-general and chief executive officer, NIMC, noted that the initiative aligns with the commission’s overarching goal of achieving secured and great success for the Renewed Hope social initiatives.
Represented by Adedapo Adedoyin, her technical advisor on ICT, the NIMC DG said the event is a pivotal initiative that marks a significant step forward in our mission to enhance and modernize the National Identification Number enrolment process across Nigeria.
She stated, “Today, I am pleased to announce the launch of a comprehensive training program aimed at refreshing the technical and operational skills of the National Social Safety-Net Coordinating Office State Operations Coordinating Unit and NIMC staff.
“This initiative focuses on practical and field-based exercises, ensuring that our teams are well-equipped to handle the complexities of enrolment processes with precision and efficiency.
“This initiative aligns with our overarching goal of achieving secured and great success for the Renewed Hope social initiatives. Through verified digital identification, we aim to improve the lives of Nigerians by providing them with access to essential services and opportunities that require a reliable and secure identity verification system”.
Coker-Odusote explained that the training program will be conducted in two batches, encompassing four states: Kwara, Nasarawa, Kano, and Rivers. A total of 388 attendees will participate in this initiative, including 225 NASSCO State Operations Coordinating Unit representatives, 35 NIMC facilitators, and 128 State support staff.
She added, “The sessions are meticulously designed to foster knowledge sharing and hands-on experience with NIMC’s enrolment device and software, ensuring that our personnel are adept at using these tools to their full potential.
“By empowering our teams with enhanced skills and practical experience, we are setting the stage for more efficient and accurate NIN enrolment processes across the nation”.
Coker-Odusote further said the training program “is a crucial step toward achieving the World Bank’s Identification for Development Initiative target of enrolling 180 million Nigerians with secure digital IDs.
“By bolstering our technical and operational capabilities, we are ensuring that NIMC is well-positioned to meet and exceed this target, thereby contributing to the global vision of inclusive and accessible digital identification for all”.
The NIMC boss8 called for collaboration between all stakeholders saying, “As we embark on this journey, I urge all participants to embrace this opportunity for growth and development.
“Together, we can build a robust and efficient National Identification System that will serve as the cornerstone for Nigeria’s social and economic progress.”
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