SOC vs. NOC: 5 Key Differences and Choosing One or Both

What Is a Security Operations Center (SOC)? 

A Security Operations Center (SOC) is a centralized unit that deals with security issues on an organizational and technical level. A SOC is equipped with a team of security analysts and engineers, as well as sophisticated detection and prevention technologies, to monitor, analyze, and respond to cybersecurity incidents. 

The primary goal of a SOC is to identify, evaluate, mitigate, and report on cybersecurity threats, ensuring that potential security breaches are prevented or detected early and responded to in a timely manner. This involves continuous surveillance of the organization’s IT infrastructure, including its networks, devices, applications, and data, to protect against security threats ranging from malware attacks to sophisticated cyber espionage.

Recommended Reading: 4 Types of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Using Them Effectively.

What Is a Network Operations Center (NOC)? 

A Network Operations Center (NOC) serves as the nerve center for monitoring the health, security, and capacity of an organization’s network, ensuring high availability and performance. The NOC is responsible for the ongoing oversight of the network, providing a centralized place for troubleshooting network problems and managing network operations. 

The core functions of a NOC include continuous monitoring of the network and server infrastructure, managing communications (emails, tickets, phone calls) for network events, incident response, and resolution, and executing changes to the network in a controlled manner. By proactively identifying and resolving network issues, a NOC helps prevent downtime and maintains the network’s performance.

SOC vs. NOC: The Key Differences 

Here is an overview of the main differences between a SOC and NOC.

1. Purpose and Focus

A SOC primarily aims to protect against cyber threats and manage incident response. It focuses on monitoring, detecting, and analyzing cybersecurity threats across the organization’s entire IT infrastructure. 

A NOC concentrates on maintaining the optimal performance and availability of network infrastructure. Its focus is on network monitoring, management, and ensuring that the network supports the organization’s applications and services without interruption.

2. Functions and Outputs

SOC functions revolve around threat intelligence, incident management, and security event analysis. SOCs are responsible for the collection, evaluation, and dissemination of information on current and emerging threats. They analyze security alerts, manage incidents, and produce reports on threats, breaches, and security recommendations. Outputs from a SOC include threat intelligence reports, incident response outcomes, and compliance audits.

NOC functions focus on network performance monitoring, issue resolution, and change management. NOCs continuously monitor network health, traffic, and performance to ensure uptime and efficiency. They troubleshoot and resolve network issues, manage network changes, and coordinate with vendors for support. Outputs from a NOC include network performance reports, incident resolution documentation, and change management logs.

3. Tools and Platforms

SOCs use tools such as Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, intrusion detection systems (IDS), endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, and threat intelligence platforms. These tools enable SOCs to aggregate and analyze data across the organization’s digital footprint, facilitating timely detection of and response to cyber threats.

NOCs employ network monitoring tools, network performance analyzers, and configuration management databases (CMDBs) to ensure the health and efficiency of the network. These tools allow NOCs to monitor network traffic, identify bottlenecks, manage network configurations, and automate responses to common network issues.

4. Required Skill Sets

Individuals in a SOC typically possess skills in cybersecurity, threat analysis, incident response, and knowledge of compliance regulations. They must be capable of using security information and event management (SIEM) tools, understanding the latest cybersecurity threats, and implementing security measures. 

NOC personnel require strong knowledge in network administration, system engineering, network monitoring tools, and troubleshooting techniques. They need to understand network protocols, infrastructure design, and performance optimization strategies.

5. Career Paths

SOC career paths typically start from entry-level positions such as Security Analyst, progressing to roles like SOC Manager or Incident Responder. Advanced positions may include Threat Intelligence Analyst or Security Architect, focusing on strategic security planning and advanced threat analysis. Professionals in a SOC can further specialize in areas such as forensic analysis or compliance and audit roles.

In a NOC, career progression often begins with a role as a Network Technician or Network Analyst, moving up to Network Engineer or NOC Manager. With experience, individuals may advance to roles such as Network Architect or Systems Engineer, specializing in network design, implementation, and optimization. Specializations include cloud networking and automation.

SOC and NOC: Key Challenges

There are several challenges affecting both SOC and NOC teams.

Alert Fatigue

SOC teams often deal with alert fatigue due to the overwhelming number of security alerts generated by monitoring tools. Distinguishing between false positives and genuine threats can be challenging, leading to missed or ignored alerts.

In the NOC context, alert fatigue can occur when monitoring tools generate excessive non-critical alerts, potentially leading to overlooked serious network issues. Implementing better filtering mechanisms and prioritization strategies is essential to manage alert volumes effectively.  

Observability and Security Analytics

For SOC teams, the complexity and volume of data they must analyze can be overwhelming. SOCs need advanced observability and analytics tools to provide deep insights into network behavior, user activities, and potential security threats. These tools must sift through vast amounts of data, identifying anomalies and patterns that could indicate a security breach. 

Observability in a network context involves understanding the state of the network and its components in real-time, which is critical for ensuring high availability and performance. Achieving this level of observability requires comprehensive monitoring tools that can analyze traffic flows, device health, and network topology changes.

Dissolving Network Perimeter

The dissolving network perimeter, with the adoption of cloud services, edge computing, and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, presents challenges for both security and network management. 

SOCs must extend their security monitoring and management capabilities beyond traditional network boundaries, ensuring secure cloud deployments, monitoring edge devices, and managing security policies for personal devices in the workplace. NOCs face the challenge of maintaining network performance and reliability in an expanded and decentralized environment. 

SOC vs. NOC: Which is Right for My Organization?

Deciding whether your organization needs a Security Operations Center (SOC), a Network Operations Center (NOC), or both, depends on several factors including your organization’s size, the complexity of your IT infrastructure, and specific security and operational needs. Here are key considerations to guide your decision:

Understanding core needs

• If your primary concern is cybersecurity and protecting your assets from cyber threats, a SOC is essential. Organizations with sensitive data, compliance requirements, and a high risk of cyber attacks will benefit from the specialized security focus of a SOC.
• If ensuring the availability, performance, and reliability of your IT infrastructure is your priority, a NOC plays a critical role. This is particularly important for organizations that rely heavily on their network for daily operations and services.

Budget and resources

• Establishing and operating a SOC or NOC requires significant investment in technology, tools, and skilled personnel. Assess your budget and consider which center would offer the most value based on your organization’s specific risks and operational requirements.
• Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with limited resources might consider outsourcing SOC or NOC services or adopting a hybrid model that combines internal and external capabilities.

Regulatory compliance and industry standards

• Certain industries have stringent regulatory requirements that necessitate a SOC for compliance with standards related to data protection and privacy (such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS). Determine if your organization falls under such regulations.
• Even if not legally required, adhering to best practices in network management and cybersecurity can significantly benefit your organization’s reputation and customer trust.

Integration with existing IT infrastructure

• Consider how a SOC or NOC would integrate with your current IT operations. A SOC’s focus on security might require changes to your network architecture to support enhanced monitoring and incident response capabilities.
• A NOC’s emphasis on network performance may necessitate upgrades or changes to your network infrastructure to support advanced monitoring and management tools.

Future growth and scalability

• Anticipate the future growth of your organization and the scalability of your IT infrastructure. A SOC can help manage the increased security risks associated with expansion, while a NOC can ensure that your network infrastructure scales efficiently.
• For rapidly growing organizations, establishing both a SOC and NOC might be beneficial in the long run, ensuring comprehensive coverage for both security and network performance.

SIEM in the future SOC

The security operations center is undergoing an exciting transformation. It is integrating with ops and development departments, and is empowered by powerful new technologies, while retaining its traditional command structure and roles to identify and respond to critical security incidents.

The impact of a next-gen SIEM on the SOC can be significant. It can:

• Reduce alert fatigue via user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) that goes beyond correlation rules, helps reduce false positives, and discover hidden threats.
• Improve MTTD by helping analysts discover incidents faster and gather all relevant data.
• Improve MTTR by integrating with security systems and leveraging Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) technology.
• Enable threat hunting by giving analysts fast and easy access and powerful exploration of unlimited volumes of security data.

Exabeam is an example of a next-generation SIEM which combines data lake technology, visibility into cloud infrastructure, behavioral analytics, an automated incident responder, and a threat hunting module with powerful data querying and visualization.