What is the Difference Between SIEM and SOAR?

In the IT security world, the SIEM and SOAR security platforms share many similar components. IT experts in the cybersecurity field have more than likely come across SOAR and SIEM technologies.

While the two technologies have many similarities, they also serve different purposes. SIEM and SOAR both collect data, but they differ when it comes to the quantity of data, type of data, and type of response. As security teams look to modernize their security operations center (SOC) to meet the demands of cloud environments, automation is a key priority. Because today's threats continue to advance, security professionals need both SOAR and SIEM, as the combination of the two is used to increase a security team's or SOC's effectiveness. This article will discuss how SIEM and SOAR are alike, how they differ in the role they play in cybersecurity, and how they work in tandem.

What Is SIEM?

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) is a type of software solution that helps organizations manage and analyze security-related data from various sources in real-time. SIEM systems collect, calculate, and correlate data from different sources to provide a centralized view of an organization's security posture.

SIEM systems use various techniques to identify and analyze security events, including signature-based detection, anomaly detection, and behavioral analysis. The systems can alert security teams about potential security incidents, provide insights into threat patterns and trends, and enable incident response and forensic investigations.

SIEM systems are essential for organizations that need to comply with regulatory requirements and can help organizations detect and respond to security incidents quickly and effectively. This reduces the risk of data breach and other security incidents.

SIEM systems have several key functions and uses, including:

• Compliance: SIEM solutions can help organizations comply with regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR. They provide tools for monitoring and reporting on security events, ensuring that organizations meet the required security and compliance standards.
• Incident investigation: By providing a centralized view of security data, SIEM tools can help identify the source of an incident and provide insights into the attack patterns and methods used.
• Vulnerability management: SIEM systems can help organizations manage vulnerabilities by analyzing data from multiple sources to identify potential security weaknesses. This allows organizations to take proactive steps to mitigate risk before an attack occurs.
• Threat intelligence: By analyzing data from a range of sources, including threat intelligence feeds, SIEM tools can help organizations stay ahead of potential threats and respond more quickly to security incidents.

What is SOAR?

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) is a type of security platform that helps organizations simplify their security operations by automating repetitive tasks and coordinating the activities of different security tools and systems.

SOAR systems combine security tools, such as SIEM, threat intelligence feeds, endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, and firewalls, to collect and analyze security data. They use this data to automate incident response workflows and orchestrate the activities of security teams, enabling faster and more efficient incident response.

Typical features of SOAR systems include:

• Workflow automation: SOAR platforms automate incident response workflows by performing tasks such as enrichment, triage, and remediation automatically.
• Security orchestration: SOAR systems coordinate the activities of different security tools and systems to ensure that they work together effectively.
• Threat intelligence: SOAR platforms integrate with threat intelligence feeds to provide context for security events and enable faster threat detection and response.
• Analytics and reporting: SOAR tools provide analytics and reporting capabilities, enabling security teams to measure the effectiveness of their security operations and identify areas for improvement.

SIEM vs. SOAR

SIEM and SOAR are two different types of security platforms, with distinct functions and capabilities. While both SIEM and SOAR are designed to help organizations manage their security operations, they differ in their approach and scope. SOAR and SIEM both collect security data from different sources, however, the source locations and amount of information are very different. SIEMs can ingest log and event data from traditional infrastructure component sources. SOARs focus more on prioritizing alerts identified by security tools such as SIEM. Another aspect is AI and automation.

SOAR systems draw in information from third-party sources such as endpoint security software, emerging threat intelligence feeds, and other third parties to provide a more complete picture of security within the network. SOARs elevate analytics by defining investigation paths based on an alert. Superior analytics can be used to generate intelligence that can be translated into tasks for the security team, which will increase human analysts' efforts.

Together, SIEM and SOAR help the security team to stay aware of potential threats, respond to incidents more efficiently, and collaborate more effectively to keep the organization's systems and data safe.

Combining Platforms

According to industry standards, all aspects of an incident should be managed from one platform. Your SOAR platform will allow you to manage each stage of the incident response lifecycle. The seven factors that constitute a quality SOAR platform include:

• Penetration Integration Framework and Lateral Use Cases: the platform should be able to integrate with a wide range of security tools and systems, including network and endpoint security solutions, threat intelligence feeds, and vulnerability management tools. It should also support lateral use cases, such as IT service management, compliance management, and risk management.
• Progressive Automation: the platform should provide automation capabilities that can progressively take on more complex tasks. It should also allow for the customization of automation workflows to fit the specific needs of the organization.
• Comprehensive Incident Case Management: the platform should provide a centralized incident case management system that allows for easy tracking and management of all security incidents. It should support collaboration between different teams within the organization and provide a clear audit trail of incident handling.
• SecOps Dashboard and War Room: the platform should provide a dashboard that displays the status of all security incidents in real-time. It should also provide a "war room" feature that allows the security team to quickly respond to critical incidents.
• Role-Based KPI Dashboards and Comprehensive Reporting Library: the platform should provide role-based KPI dashboards that allow different stakeholders to see relevant metrics and data. It should also provide a comprehensive reporting library that allows for customized reports to be generated on demand.
• Incident Detailed Reports are Automatically Created: the platform should automatically generate detailed reports on all security incidents, including root cause analysis and remediation steps taken. These reports should be easily accessible and provide valuable insights into incident trends and areas for improvement.

• User-friendly Interface: the platform should have a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate and use. It should also provide training and support to ensure that all users can effectively use the platform.

Keep Learning About Cyber Threat Prevention

Both SIEM and SOAR connect different tools and use the aggregated data to provide insightful information to security teams, easing their job in incident detection, investigation, and remediation. Integrating SIEM tools with a SOAR solution leads to the creation of a more robust, efficient, and responsive security solution.

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