A Security Operations Center (SOC) is a team and process for continuously monitoring, detecting and responding to incidents — not a single tool you buy. An organisation can build a SOC three ways: fully in-house, a hybrid model, or fully outsourced to an external provider (MSSP). The choice depends on scale, budget, and skill availability.
Quick Overview
What you’ll learn from this article:
- How a SOC differs from a single SIEM tool or an antivirus system
- Three SOC build models: in-house, hybrid, and outsourced (MSSP)
- Key SOC team roles and how incident analysis levels are divided
- A decision checklist for choosing a SOC model for a specific organisation
Who this article is for: security leaders (CISOs, IT department heads) planning to build or reorganise a SOC function, managers weighing the cost of an in-house team against outsourcing, security specialists considering a SOC career path.
Reading time: 7 minutes
Building a Security Operations Center (SOC) team
At the core of SOC work is the detect-and-respond cycle: collecting logs and alerts from systems across the organisation (usually via a SIEM — Security Information and Event Management), analysing those alerts for real threats (dismissing false positives, prioritising genuine incidents), and then responding — from isolating an infected device to a full incident-response procedure. NIST SP 800-61 describes this cycle as four phases: preparation, detection and analysis, containment/eradication/recovery, and post-incident activity — documenting lessons that prevent the same scenario from recurring.
A SOC team splits analysts into levels matching increasing incident complexity. Level 1 (L1) analysts monitor alerts in real time and triage them — most alerts are false positives that L1 dismisses after initial review. Alerts requiring deeper analysis go to L2, who investigate the incident’s context, correlate it with other events, and decide whether to escalate. The most complex cases — advanced persistent threats (APTs), incidents requiring forensic analysis — go to L3, which often includes threat hunting (proactively searching for threats that haven’t yet triggered an alert).
Three SOC build models
| Model | Advantages | Disadvantages | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-house SOC | Full control, organisation-specific knowledge, fast response with no intermediary | High cost (24/7 team), difficulty recruiting specialists | Large organisations with a high risk profile and budget for a dedicated team |
| Hybrid | Flexibility — internal team for critical systems, outsourcing for routine monitoring | Requires a clear division of responsibility between teams | Mid-sized organisations with a limited budget but specific requirements |
| Outsourced (MSSP) | Lower starting cost, access to expertise without recruiting, fast setup | Less control, potential response delay, requires trusting an external provider | Smaller organisations without the resources to build their own 24/7 team |
How to build a SOC function step by step
- Assess the organisation’s risk profile and regulatory requirements — regulated sectors (finance, critical infrastructure) often have specific requirements for detection and response times that influence the model choice.
- Calculate the real cost of an in-house 24/7 team — covering the full day requires at least a few analysts per shift, which can be disproportionate to the value of the protected assets for smaller organisations.
- Choose a model (in-house, hybrid, MSSP) based on budget and skill availability, not just the market trend favoring one model over another.
- Define clear escalation procedures and SLAs regardless of the chosen model — without clear time thresholds between analysis levels, response to real incidents gets delayed.
- Plan a continuous-improvement process based on post-incident review — a SOC without this feedback loop repeats the same mistakes across subsequent incidents.
Automation (SOAR — Security Orchestration, Automation and Response) is increasingly relieving L1 analysts of repetitive alert-triage work, letting the team focus on incidents that need human judgment. This doesn’t eliminate the need for a human team, but it shifts the time balance — less on manual triage, more on contextual analysis and threat hunting. Organisations that roll out SOAR before stabilising their manual incident-response procedures often end up automating a chaotic process instead of fixing it — good practice is to stabilise response procedures first, then automate them.
Read Also
- Cybersecurity Career Path - From Security Analyst to CISO
- How does artificial intelligence help detect threats, automate defense and protect your business?
Develop Your Skills
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➡️ The basics of the SOC analyst’s job — EITT training ➡️ AI Security Automation — SOC and Threat Detection with AI — EITT training
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How does a SOC differ from a SIEM tool?
A SIEM is a tool for collecting and correlating logs and generating alerts — one element of SOC work, not the SOC itself. A SOC is the team and processes that interpret alerts from the SIEM (and other sources), decide their significance, and respond to real threats. Owning a SIEM without an analyst team doesn’t create a functioning SOC.
Does a small company need its own SOC?
Building an in-house 24/7 team is rarely worth it for a small organisation — the cost of covering the full day with analysts usually exceeds the value of the protected assets. An outsourced (MSSP) or hybrid model usually offers a better cost-to-benefit ratio for smaller organisations.
How many incident-analysis levels does a typical SOC team have?
Typically three: L1 (monitoring and initial alert triage), L2 (deeper analysis and correlation), L3 (the most complex cases, threat hunting, forensic analysis). Smaller teams sometimes merge L2 and L3 into a single role due to limited resources.
How does automation (SOAR) change SOC work?
SOAR automates repetitive triage and initial-response tasks, relieving L1 analysts. This doesn’t eliminate the need for a human team, but it shifts the time balance — less manual triage of routine alerts, more contextual analysis of incidents that need human judgment.