Keeping yourself secure in today’s cyber threat landscape has never been more challenging. 

The surge in cyber attacks, paired with the increasing sophistication of cybercriminals and the rise of AI-powered attacks, has made cybersecurity more difficult and complex than ever before.

And the evidence of this is clear. Data breaches dominate headlines worldwide, and, according to the UK’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey for 2024, an average of 50% of businesses report having experienced some form of cyber security breach or attack in the last 12 months. 

With the threat higher than ever before, Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) has become essential for businesses big and small around the world looking to keep themselves secure. 

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What is Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR)?

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) is a set of software tools designed to help security teams integrate and coordinate separate security tools, automate repetitive tasks, and streamline incident response workflows.

SOAR solutions give security teams a central console where they can integrate these tools into optimized threat response workflows and automate low-level, repetitive tasks in those workflows. 

what is soar

This console also allows them to manage all the security alerts generated by these tools in one, central place. 

By streamlining alert triage and ensuring that different security tools work together, SOARs not only allow organizations to reduce the time to detect and respond to cyber attacks but also observe, understand and prevent future incidents, improving their overall security posture.

How do SOAR solutions work?

A comprehensive SOAR solution is designed to operate under three primary software capabilities – threat and vulnerability management, security incident response, and security operations automation.

1. Threat and vulnerability management

SOAR solutions automate the process of collecting data from various security tools like SIEM, vulnerability scanners, and threat intelligence feeds. They analyze and prioritize threats based on severity, potential impact, and context. This helps security teams focus on the most critical threats first.

SOAR allows for the creation of automated playbooks for handling specific types of threats. These playbooks can trigger actions like isolating infected devices, blocking malicious IPs, and even escalating the incident to analysts.

Once the threat is identified, SOAR provides comprehensive reports on each potential threat, allowing security teams to track progress and identify any lingering vulnerabilities.

2. Security incident response

SOAR solutions significantly enhance security incident response by automating tasks, streamlining workflows, and providing better visibility into the entire process.

They do this by automating repetitive response tasks like isolating infected devices, blocking malicious IPs, and escalating incidents to analysts. This significantly reduces the time it takes to contain a threat and minimize its impact.

At the same time, SOAR prioritizes alerts based on severity, potential impact, and context. This ensures that analysts focus on the most critical incidents first, further reducing the Reduced Mean Time to Response (MTTR).

3. Security operations automation

Many SOAR solutions leverage AI and machine learning to analyze data and learn from past incidents. By automating tasks like vulnerability scanning and patching and the initial analysis of security alerts, they allow security teams to focus on more strategic activities like threat hunting, investigation, and overall security planning.

SOAR solutions also act as a central hub for security teams, integrating various security tools and systems to help them mitigate threats and act fast when they strike.

This allows them to communicate and work together seamlessly, eliminating the need for manual switching between tools and streamlining the overall workflow.

Best SOAR Solutions

There are a variety of SOAR solutions available today, each of which can help you mitigate threats, identify vulnerabilities, and keep yourself secure. But like with any business tool, these solutions are not all made the same. 

We’re counting down ten of the best SOAR solutions on the market today based on their popularity with users and effectiveness at keeping organizations secure in 2024.