Security operations (SecOps) is a combination of the information security and IT departments in a business working together to reduce cyber risk. A security operations platform like ReliaQuest GreyMatter underpins SecOps by providing a unified platform that integrates with existing security technologies to improve visibility, reduce complexity, and manage cybersecurity risks across an organization’s attack surface.

The heart of security operations is the threat detection, investigation, and response (DIR) process. You need:

  • tuned and optimized detections that avoid noisy false-positive alerts,
  • rapid investigations accelerated by automation, and
  • streamlined remediation that ideally uses your existing security toolset like endpoint detection and response (EDR) or firewalls.

This blog dives into how a security operations platform accelerates the DIR process, using ReliaQuest GreyMatter as an example.

Security Platform: An Evolution from Point Solutions

Security operations teams deploy various security tools (EDRs, NTA, SIEMs, PAMs, firewalls, and so forth) to solve different security challenges. These tools improve security protection, but result in tool sprawl challenges for security teams that need to pivot between consoles when investigating alerts and responding to threats. Security teams have also had to become experts in a variety of security tools, whether in tuning that tooling or in digging in to respond to a security incident. The phrase “a jack of all trades is a master of none” comes to mind when considering this fragmented approach.

Defining a Security Platform

A security operations platform like ReliaQuest GreyMatter provides a single point for security teams to manage the DIR process. Some key characteristics of a security operations platform include:

  • Use what you already have better: GreyMatter is technology agnostic and allows you to use the security tools that you already have. That could be a SIEM, EDR, or firewall.
  • Bi-directional integration: Uni-directional integration can ingest an alert or extract security artifacts from a tool, but bi-directional integration within GreyMatter allows you to query and take action through those tools.
  • Apply automation to high-time, low-brain activities such as autopopulating investigation artifacts, configuring response playbooks, and managing the abuse mailbox.

High-Fidelity Detection

One challenge for security teams is locating threats without drowning in false-positive and duplicate alerts. At ReliaQuest, we offer an extensive library of curated detection capabilities that can be deployed using your existing technology, enabling you to achieve value within a few hours. ReliaQuest GreyMatter operates across multi-vendor, multi-cloud, multi-SIEM/EDR security environments to detect malicious behavior or actions. We deliver accelerated detection capabilities with an extensive library of detections mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework so you can measure detection coverage improvements over time. GreyMatter detection coverage is comprehensive, consistent, and tuned to an individual customer environment. Effective detections evolve over time, and ReliaQuest manages the complete lifecycle necessary to maintain effective detection logic to maximize effectiveness and minimize noise.

Investigations Informed by Automation

Security automation can streamline the threat-investigation process by eliminating repetitive or tedious tasks. GreyMatter Intelligent Analysis (GMIA) automates the investigation and collection of data related to an alert, reducing the manual effort required to respond to alerts. Instead, you and your security teams can focus on mitigating true threats to the organization.

GMIA automates the collection data relevant to incoming alerts, automatically aggregates artifacts from your various security technologies (SIEM, EDR, etc.), and normalizes the data using the Greymatter Universal Query Language. Then, GreyMatter will present your team with the top-priority events, allowing them to reach resolution faster.

Response with Preconfigured Playbooks Through Existing Tools

When you can respond rapidly to threats, you contain the incident blast radius and minimize potential damage. With GreyMatter, you can respond across your entire tool ecosystem, not just a single tool at a time. Once incidents have gone through GMIA, you can directly inside the GreyMatter platform, so you can avoid hopping between multiple tool consoles. By executing all actions from a single platform, you achieve consistency and speed in your response, using repeatable playbooks for standardized responses as required.

MTTR from Days to Minutes

To improve performance in security operations, you need to measure it. The ReliaQuest Security Model Index, powered by the GreyMatter platform, provides continuous, board-ready reporting and measurement to track improvements in visibility, tool efficacy, and maturity of your teams and processes.

In GreyMatter, you can access transparent, easy-to-understand metrics that can help you drive continuous improvement and deliver ROI across your security programs. We set and monitor a security program roadmap based on each unique environment, technology, and business risk to ensure we are securing what matters most to the business. We also aggregate metrics from across industry and peer sets to provide benchmarks that you can measure your company against.

Taking Security Operations to the Next Level

The DIR process is the cornerstone of security operations and underpins what a security operations platform provides—but keep in mind that it’s one piece of a bigger puzzle. A security operations platform like GreyMatter can help with the rest, including threat hunting, breach and attack simulation, and metrics that allow you to improve operations and communicate your results.

In today’s world, where cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated and frequent, it’s crucial for organizations to invest in platforms like GreyMatter to protect themselves from potential security breaches.