Challenges with Security, Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) software
There are a number of challenges with SOAR software that IT teams can encounter.
Skill gaps: While there is the misconception that SOAR software could replace security staff, the tool is meant to augment security teams, allowing them to work efficiently and effectively but not replacing them. However, there still may be a skills gap as the security team must be able to create detailed workflows of their processes.
Effective deployment: Another challenge of SOAR software is that it must be deployed to the enterprise but also connected to the other applications and technologies, which can be very complicated. An organization must also have staff with enough skills to deploy and maintain the platform. The applications and technologies used by the enterprise must also be able to support or be integrated into the SOAR software. One of SOAR software’s greatest strengths is to connect and orchestrate other technologies; however, if each technology is unable to be integrated, it hampers the benefits of deploying SOAR software.
How to Buy Security, Orchestration, Automation, and Response Software
Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Security, Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Software
If an organization is just starting out and looking to purchase SOAR software, g2.com can help select the best one.
Most business pain points might be related to all of the manual work that must be completed. If the company is large and has a lot of networks, data, or devices in its organization, they may need to shop for a SOAR software that can grow with its organization. Users should think about the pain points in security to help create a checklist of criteria. Additionally, the buyer must determine the number of employees who will need to use the SOAR software and if they currently have the skills to administer it.
Taking a holistic overview of the business and identifying pain points can help the team springboard into creating a checklist of criteria. The checklist serves as a detailed guide that includes both necessary and nice-to-have features, including budget, features, number of users, integrations, security staff skills, cloud or on-premises solutions, and more.
Depending on the scope of the deployment, it might be helpful to produce an RFI, a one-page list with a few bullet points describing what is needed from SOAR software.
Compare Security, Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Software
Create a long list
Vendor evaluations are an essential part of the software buying process from meeting the business functionality needs to implementation. For ease of comparison, after all demos are complete, it helps to prepare a consistent list of questions regarding specific needs and concerns to ask each vendor.
Create a short list
From the long list of vendors, it is helpful to narrow down the list of vendors and come up with a shorter list of contenders, preferably no more than three to five. With this list in hand, businesses can produce a matrix to compare the features and pricing of the various solutions.
Conduct demos
To ensure the comparison is comprehensive, the user should demo each solution on the shortlist with the same use cases. This will allow the business to evaluate like for like and see how each vendor stacks up against the competition.
Selection of Security, Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Software
Choose a selection team
Before getting started, creating a winning team that will work together throughout the entire process, from identifying pain points to implementation, is crucial. The software selection team should consist of organization members with the right interest, skills, and time to participate in this process. A good starting point is to aim for three to five people who fill roles such as the main decision maker, project manager, process owner, system owner, or staffing subject matter expert, as well as a technical lead, head administrator, or security administrator. In smaller companies, the vendor selection team may be smaller, with fewer participants multitasking and taking on more responsibilities.
Compare notes
The selection team should compare notes and facts and figures which they noted during the process, such as costs, security capabilities, and alert and incident response times.
Negotiation
Just because something is written on a company’s pricing page does not mean it's final. It is crucial to open up a conversation regarding pricing and licensing. For example, the vendor may be willing to give a discount for multi-year contracts or for recommending the product to others.
Final decision
After this stage, and before going all in, it is recommended to roll out a test run or pilot program to test adoption with a small sample size of users. If the tool is well used and well received, the buyer can be confident that the selection was correct. If not, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.
What does Security, Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Software cost?
SOAR is considered a long-term investment. This means there must be a careful evaluation of vendors, and the software should be tailored to each organization's specific requirements. Once a SOAR solution is purchased, deployed, and integrated into an organization’s security system, the cost could be high, which is why the evaluation stage of selecting SOAR software is so crucial. The notion of rip-and-replace cost can be high. The SOAR vendor chosen should continue to provide support for the SOAR solution with flexibility and open integration.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Organizations decide to purchase SOAR software with some type of return on investment (ROI). As they want to recoup the money spent on the software, it is critical to understand the costs that will be saved in terms of efficiency.
SOAR software saves security staff costs by eliminating manual tasks. For example, SOAR software automatically investigates the scenario of email phishing attacks which is very common, so this task can be very repetitive and consumes security staff time if it is done manually. A large enterprise used actual data from its SOAR software deployment and compared it to the cost of handling email phishing investigations automatically using SOAR software versus handling them manually. The enterprise found that the reduction in staff time required to handle phishing emails equated to savings of over $680,000 per year.
