How to communicate your SOC's ROI and justify your security team's value

Why should our organization invest in a SOC?

How much value has the SOC team really added to the business?

We didn't have any major security breaches last year, so why should we increase spending on security this year?

As a SOC manager, these questions may be very familiar to you. However, they are also daunting. It's up to you, as leader of the SOC, to stand up for your team and justify the value they bring. But how?

The cost of cybercrimes are expected to reach $10.5 trillion by 2025. However, some people still need to be convinced about the necessity of a SOC team.

This article will help you gain insights on:

• Why the ROI of your SOC matters.
• The benefits your SOC offers.
• The techniques to communicate value to stakeholders.

Why SOC ROI matters

As a SOC manager, you need to think from a security and business point of view. Quantifying the value of your team is vital. The measurement of SOC ROI holds paramount significance in the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity.

At its core, your SOC ROI serves as a critical metric that goes beyond financial considerations, encapsulating the tangible and intangible benefits derived from investments in cybersecurity defenses. The ability to quantify the ROI also provides insight that allows your organization to evaluate the overall health and effectiveness of its cybersecurity posture.

Understanding and articulating SOC ROI enables your organization to make informed decisions regarding the allocation of resources. It empowers cybersecurity leaders like you to optimize strategies, ensuring that every dollar invested translates into measurable benefits such as reduced incident response times, minimized financial losses from potential breaches, and enhanced compliance with regulatory requirements.

The tangible and intangible value added by your SOC

The benefits brought in by your SOC team can be both tangible and intangible. Tangible benefits are those that can be visibly measured, such as cost savings and downtime minimization. Intangible benefits aren't immediately visible but yield long-term results, including customer loyalty, brand image, and employee morale.

Tangible benefits

• Cost savings: Your cost savings would be the difference between the total cost incurred with and without an effective SOC. In case of a cyberattack or a breach, your business may incur costs such as regulatory fines, direct costs from loss of data, and the cost of response and mitigation. A relentless SOC powered with effective security tools, such as a SIEM, can potentially save you millions. See for yourself with our cost savings calculator.
• Downtime minimization: Downtime refers to the time taken for the business to resume to its normal pace after a cyber incident. The difference in total business downtime incurred with and without a SOC leaves you with the downtime minimization value.

Intangible benefits

• Customer loyalty: Customer loyalty is derived from metrics such as retention rates and renewals.
• Brand image: Effective security measures can result in increased brand image and identity. Your security efforts can be good PR campaigns as more analysts and journalists now value privacy and security. Mainstream media monitoring and public surveys can aid in calculating the value of the brand image.
• Employee morale: Secure management of employee PII can boost employee morale. Surveys and personal interviews with employees about how their sense of security is affected with and without the presence of your SOC team can give you an idea of your team's effectiveness.

Calculating an accurate ROI by getting accurate measurements of tangible benefits and estimates of intangible benefits can be a formidable task. But, It's your responsibility to pitch your value. Let's take a look at how you can convey the value of your SOC team to the CISO effectively.

Decision-maker communication techniques

You're halfway up the hill after you've calculated your SOC's ROI, but now you need to effectively communicate this to the CISO. Here are five strategies to keep in mind while communicating with your CISO:

1. Visualization: The power of data visualization is immense. A comprehensive and visual report consisting of the methodology used, the collected data, and the resulting ROI calculation can be impactful. A SIEM solution with incident management dashboards can help in data visualization of your SOC team's performance.
2. Risk-based KPIs: Other than the CISO, many non-technical personnel in top management may not understand concepts such as mean time to detect and incident counts. They are more interested in areas such as financial savings and risk levels, and the CISO needs to address those factors to get their buy-in. Therefore, tailor your pitch to the CISO in that angle.
3. Storytelling: Stories are captivating and pull the listeners closer to your perspective. Using real-life examples can help you provide clear vision of your SOC's importance to your CISO. For instance, providing a story of the SOC analyst's workflow and a captivating case of your how they investigated and contained an attack can highlight the efficiency and effectiveness of the team.
4. Benchmarking: Benchmarking your security performance against peers in the industry shows your CISO that you're aware of trends and that you think strategically.
5. Improvement strategies: Being honest can go a long way in the world of business. Admitting your team's areas of improvement and presenting your strategies for future improvement can instill a sense of trust and confidence in your CISO. This activity shows your commitment to improvement and shows that you're future-oriented.

Conclusion

The cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve rapidly. As a leader of the first line of defense of your organization, your team relies on you for support and encouragement. Calculating the value your SOC team offers will be a factor of motivation, and communication strategies will help you effectively pitch to stakeholders for higher budgets and build an internal reputation.

Although SOCs undoubtedly add value to their organizations, there always areas that can be improved. A Ponemon Institute report highlights 51% of respondents saying their SOC ROI has worsened as compared to 44% in 2019. Your responsibility will not end at the value justification of your team and instead requires continuous year-on-year improvement as well. This means the evaluation of metrics, such as the number of incidents, mean time to detect, mean time to respond, and compliance management, will be done yearly.

ManageEngine Log360 can help you with both ROI improvement and communication. Here are a few ways:

ROI improvement

• Precise UEBA-based anomaly detection: This will decrease the number of false positives that security analysts have to wrestle with. A decrease in the number of false positive will allow your team to focus on the threats that really matter and make your SOC more productive.
• Automated workflows for threat mitigation: In case a threat is detected, the first line of defense can be easily achieved through an automated workflow-based response. This will enable you to stop threats from becoming bigger and save costs.
• Risk minimization of data breaches using threat intelligence: By connecting to threat intelligence feeds, Log360 can bring in real-time information about threats. Your team can efficiently ensure that such threats don't find a presence within your organization's network. With this, you can decrease the risk to your organization.

ROI communication

• Easy visualization with all-inclusive dashboards consisting of detailed graphs and charts: You can use these charts and graphs while discussing a security strategy with your CISO.
• Predefined and custom risk-based reports and KPIs: With metrics such as mean time to respond, and user and entity risk scores, available within Log360, you can clearly see areas of strength and weakness in your SOC.

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