Building and Operating a SOC: A Q‑SEC CISO’s Perspective

As the CISO of Q‑SEC, I routinely see how mid‑sized organisations underestimate the complexity of modern cyber threats. Attackers are more organised and automated than ever; even a single misconfigured service can become the opening they need. In my role, I am responsible for ensuring that our Security Operations Center (SOC) can detect, contain and learn from attacks before they disrupt the business.

This document is written for CIOs and senior technology leaders who are not SOC managers by trade, but who need a clear, operational understanding of how a SOC actually works—day to day, and especially when an attack is detected.

Why Build a SOC?

A SOC exists for one reason: to reduce business risk by detecting and responding to cyber threats faster than attackers can cause damage. In practice, this means centralising visibility, decision‑making and response.

Without a SOC, security signals are fragmented across tools and teams. Alerts are handled inconsistently, context is lost, and response times stretch from minutes to days. A SOC fixes this by aligning people, process and technology around a single operational mission.

Key activities

• Centralised monitoring of security events across the organisation

• Consistent incident handling and escalation

• Reduced dwell time for attackers

• Clear accountability during security incidents

Preparation: Building the Baseline

Detection does not start with alerts. It starts with preparation. Before a SOC can identify malicious behaviour, it must understand what normal looks like in your environment.

At Q‑SEC, this meant building a reliable baseline across users, endpoints, servers, networks and cloud workloads. We mapped critical assets, defined what mattered most to the business, and configured our detection tooling accordingly. We also developed incident response playbooks in advance—because decision‑making during an incident is where organisations fail under pressure.

Key activities

• Asset inventory and business‑impact mapping

• Log and telemetry onboarding across infrastructure

• Baseline definition for normal user and system behaviour

• Detection rule configuration and tuning

• Incident response playbook development

Continuous Monitoring and Detection

Once the baseline is in place, the SOC moves into continuous monitoring mode. Telemetry from across the environment is collected and analysed in near real time. The objective is not to catch everything, but to reliably surface meaningful anomalies.

Effective detection combines automated analytics with human oversight. Technology correlates events and flags suspicious behaviour; analysts validate whether that behaviour represents a real threat or benign activity.

Key activities

• 24×7 log and event ingestion

• Anomaly detection against established baselines

• Correlation of events across endpoints, network and cloud

• Enrichment with threat intelligence and contextual data

• Ongoing tuning to reduce false positives

Alert Triage and Investigation

Every SOC lives or dies by its triage process. Most alerts are noise. The SOC’s job is to quickly determine which ones matter.

At Q‑SEC, triage is structured and role‑driven. Tier‑1 analysts validate alerts and filter false positives. Tier‑2 analysts investigate confirmed alerts, reconstructing attack timelines and assessing scope. Tier‑3 specialists handle advanced forensics, malware analysis and detection engineering.

Key activities

• Alert validation and false‑positive reduction

• Severity classification based on asset criticality

• Evidence collection and timeline reconstruction

• Escalation between analyst tiers

• Documentation for auditability and handover

Incident Response: Containment and Eradication

When an alert becomes a confirmed incident, speed matters more than precision. The first objective is containment: stopping the attacker from moving further or causing additional damage.

This is where preparation pays off. Pre‑approved playbooks allow analysts to act immediately—isolating systems, disabling accounts, or blocking malicious traffic—without waiting for ad‑hoc decisions.

Key activities

• System and account isolation

• Credential revocation and access control changes

• Blocking malicious infrastructure

• Malware removal and vulnerability patching

• Coordination with IT, legal and communications teams

Recovery and Post‑Incident Improvement

Once the threat is removed, the focus shifts to recovery and learning. Systems are restored, business operations resume, and the SOC conducts a structured post‑incident review.

Every incident is treated as intelligence. Detection rules are refined, playbooks are updated, and gaps in visibility or response are addressed. Over time, this is how SOC maturity is built.

Key activities

• System restoration and validation

• Stakeholder and regulatory communication

• Root‑cause analysis

• Detection and playbook updates

• Analyst training and process refinement

What Happens When an Attack Is Detected

From my seat, a serious incident follows a predictable pattern:

1. Alert fires – An anomaly crosses a detection threshold and is validated by Tier‑1 analysts.

2. Investigation begins – Tier‑2 analysts assess scope, impact and attacker behaviour.

3. Executive visibility – I receive an initial briefing focused on business impact, not technical detail.

4. Containment executes – The SOC acts immediately using predefined playbooks.

5. Deep analysis – Tier‑3 specialists confirm root cause and attacker techniques.

6. Recovery starts – Systems are restored and risk is reduced.

7. Lessons learned – The SOC improves before the next incident.

Selecting the Right SOC Model

Not every mid‑sized company can staff a 24×7 in‑house SOC. Common approaches include:

In‑house SOC
Full control over tools and processes. Suitable for larger organisations that require strict data control but comes with high staffing and infrastructure costs.

Managed SOC (MSSP)
Outsource monitoring and response to a third‑party provider. Ideal for smaller or resource‑constrained organisations that need expert support without building everything themselves.

Hybrid SOC
Combine internal and external teams—internal staff handle day shifts or strategic oversight, while the provider covers nights and weekends.

Virtual SOC
A cloud‑based service model that offers flexibility and scalability for distributed or digital‑first businesses.

Selecting a model requires balancing budget, risk tolerance, regulatory requirements and the need for hands‑on control. Regardless of the model, the step‑by‑step detection and response process remains largely the same.

Final Thoughts

A SOC is not a product you buy—it is an operating capability you build and mature. The organisations that succeed are the ones that invest early in preparation, enforce disciplined processes, and treat every incident as a chance to improve.

For CIOs, the takeaway is simple: you don’t need to run the SOC yourself—but you do need to understand how it works, what good looks like, and how it supports the business when it matters most.