CISO Playbook — Building a Security Operations Center That Actually Works

The SOC Maturity Model (Where Are You?)

• Level 0: No SOC (ad-hoc incident response)
• Level 1: Reactive (alerts → investigate → close)
• Level 2: Proactive (threat hunting, correlation, playbooks)
• Level 3: Adaptive (ML-driven triage, automated response, continuous improvement)

The Tech Stack (Honest Assessment)

• SIEM: what it can and can't do (and why it's not enough alone)
• SOAR: automation for response workflows
• EDR/XDR: endpoint and extended detection
• Threat Intelligence Platforms: contextualizing alerts
• Why tool sprawl kills SOC effectiveness

People & Process (The Real Bottleneck)

• Tier 1/2/3 analyst model vs. skill-based routing
• Playbook development: the 20 scenarios that cover 80% of incidents
• Shift scheduling and burnout prevention
• Training: tabletop exercises, purple team drills, CTF competitions

Metrics That Matter

• MTTD (Mean Time to Detect)
• MTTR (Mean Time to Respond)
• Alert-to-investigation ratio
• False positive rate
• Dwell time reduction

Building vs. Outsourcing (MSSP Decision Framework)

Closing CTA:

→ Link to: /solutions/cyber-security/enterprise-security/siem/

→ Link to: /solutions/cyber-security/it-security-assurance/managed-security-mssp/

• When to build in-house
• When to use a managed SOC / MSSP
• Hybrid model: internal L3 + outsourced L1/L2