Manage Your Mismatched SOCs

Deciding whether to build an in-house security operations center (SOC) or outsource Security Operations (SecOps) in whole or in part is one of the most important decisions a security leader makes. The question might seem as simple as internal or external, but there are a huge number of factors at play. 

As a SOC leader, you must make sure the model you choose matches your organization. That means considering risks, capabilities, budgets, governance, and operational reality. 

The wrong choice leads you into a trap far too many organizations fall into: a mismatched SOC.

This can become very expensive and even introduce bigger risks.

Why Do Organizations Build In-House SOCs?

Keeping SecOps internal can be complicated, but it provides greater control.

Large enterprises and heavily regulated industries often require direct control over incident response. They need close alignment between security, infrastructure, legal, and communications teams. Ultimately, they need authority during an incident to make granular decisions aligned with their organizational needs – especially when those decisions can have serious operational or regulatory consequences.

In-house SOCs provide that control in a way that external ones can’t. 

They also benefit from proximity. Analysts in an in-house SOC understand their organization intimately – they know which systems matter most, they know how to talk to stakeholders, and they can escalate quickly without navigating contractual boundaries. They know the undocumented details, politics, and practices, which third parties would struggle to understand. 

Why Do Organizations Outsource SOCs?

Running a 24/7 SOC requires staffing for shift work. This includes evenings, weekends, holidays, illnesses, and surge incidents. That means sometimes you’re going to be paying too many people. Sometimes you won’t have enough staff, with risks of burnout. If you want to stay effective, your training budget needs to be sufficient, and your validation of controls, configurations, and workflows costs too. Don’t forget red team and simulation costs.

For many organizations – particularly smaller ones - that simply isn’t realistic. A managed security service, however, can offer:

• Continuous coverage

• Access to deeper specialist skills

• Exposure to broader threat trends

• Built-in playbooks and maturity

• Ongoing skill development within their own teams

• Health checks and validation, where other clients have seen success/failures 

Often, a fraction of the cost of doing everything yourself. It can be the simpler, more cost-effective option. But it’s not necessarily more effective from a security perspective, especially in immature, frequently changing environments. 

It Doesn’t Have to Be Binary

In reality, most organizations don’t sit at either extreme. Few can afford a fully staffed, internal SOC, and even fewer are comfortable giving up full visibility to a third party. As such, many organizations adopt a hybrid SOC. Keeping some responsibilities in-house, while outsourcing others. 

For example, an organization might outsource tier 1 triage support whilst retaining tier 2 escalations with an on-call setup to be notified for critical investigations, as they can’t justify 24/7 staffing. They might rely on a provider for specialist skills, tier 3 or beyond, while their own team handles the parts of the environment that require business knowledge and general incident analysis. They might have intermediate and senior analysts who can escalate when highly skilled resources are needed, such as reverse engineers. 

That approach can work, but only if you and the provider understand the split. 

Hybrid models introduce more moving parts, which makes it easier for gaps or delays to appear. If the organization assumes the provider is tuning detections, and the provider assumes the organization is doing it, the work doesn’t get done. If alerts are escalated without context, investigations slow down. If health checks are not agreed within the contract, something that works smoothly now, might not mature as the industry trends progress. 

But hybrid SOCs in of themselves aren’t the problem – mismatch is. And that’s where the shared responsibility problem starts. 

The Shared Responsibility Gap

One of the most common causes of a mismatched SOC is the misunderstanding of the shared responsibility model. Outsourcing a SOC doesn’t mean handing security over and walking away. Someone inside your organization needs to own the relationship, review reports, understand what the SOC is actually doing, and ensure it aligns with business risk. The organization retains accountability.  

When things go wrong, assumptions start to replace clarity. For example, if both parties assume the other is responsible for tuning detection, health checks, investigating alerts, or handling incident response, that work may not get done. 

When organizations don’t define roles and responsibilities, create reporting dashboards to monitor improvements and response, the result can be duplicated effort in some areas and blind spots in others.

The One-Size-Fits-All Problem

Sometimes, problems start before the SOC even starts operating. 

Organizations buy tools, hire people, or outsource services without first understanding their own risk. They choose a solution that looks comprehensive, it appears in the top quadrant, it’s a big name. However, organizations aren’t one-size-fits-all, and SOCs aren’t either. 

For example, if you: 

• Haven’t analyzed your inherent risk, how do you know what threats matter most to your organization?

• Don’t understand your compensating controls; where are the gaps that you might want to enhance logging on?

• If you don’t understand your own environment, how do you cut through the alert noise, and focus on relevant detections?

As a result, the organization may spend a lot of money on tooling, but SecOps still can’t investigate security events effectively. Maybe they don’t have the right logs, meaning limited or no visibility. Maybe you have the logs, but with the amount of alerts coming in, there's no way to respond in a timely manner.  If the RACI isn’t defined, you aren’t creating a business solution; you’re creating a nightmare.

Technology isn’t going to fix everything magically. You need to understand your environment, your risks, and your business goals. The requirements will lead you to the appropriate approach, solution, and budget.

The Result of a Mismatched SOC: Noise and Burnout