Soc Analyst Responsibilities
Soc Analyst Responsibilities
As an SOC analyst, you will likely find that no two days are alike in a security operations center
– hackers and other adversaries don’t follow a specific schedule, and how much time you have to
spend on an individual incident can depend on many factors. You may be able to circumvent an
attack quickly in some cases, while others much more time and attention.
While you will be required to ascertain the weaknesses of hardware, software, and network
infrastructure and establish ways to protect it daily, the nature of information security means that
each day may bring different situations, tasks, and challenges. When there is a threat or an attack,
your team will likely work nonstop to expose the attack, shut down access to your systems,
resolve the issue, work to prevent the same type of attack from happening in the future, and
document and communicate appropriate information to management or clients.
SOC analysts may have to be willing to work at odd hours, outside of the normal workday, to
perform the necessary incident response to protect the digital assets of the organization. You can
rest assured that as an SOC analyst, you will not experience boredom or repetition in your daily
duties.
In general, the role of the SOC analyst is to plan, monitor, and implement security measures to
protect an organization’s computer systems, networks, and data. To do this, SOC analysts must
stay up-to-date on the most current intelligence, including hackers’ practices and tactics, to
anticipate and prevent security threats and breaches.
In addition to the above, as an SOC analyst, you will likely be required to:
Each organization that is hiring an SOC analyst will have its own degree and work experience
requirements for candidates. However, it’s most common for organizations to require that SOC
analyst candidates have a bachelor’s degree in computer science or another relevant field, as well
as at least one year of IT work experience.
Some of the other common requirements for SOC analyst positions are:
As a security operations center analyst your primary duty is to ensure that the organization’s
digital assets are secure and protected from unauthorized access. That means that you are
responsible for protecting both online and on-premise infrastructures, monitoring metrics and
data to identify suspicious activity, and identifying and mitigating risks before there is a breach.
In the event that a breach does occur, an SOC analyst will be on the front line, working to
counter the attack.
Additionally, SOC analysts must generate reporting for managers and IT administrators to
evaluate the effectiveness of current security protocols. Then you will be responsible for making
any necessary modifications to establish a more secure network. You may be required to create
training programs and curriculum to educate the organization’s employees and network users on
proper security policies and procedures.
Candidates for the SOC analyst position must have analytical skills, communication skills, and
the desire to stay up-to-date on the latest technology. It’s also important that you are prepared to
sift through huge amounts of information to identify threats or other security issues, and to be
flexible and available at any time – because threats and attacks can happen at any time, day or
night.