Introduction
I have spent enough time in Security Operations to see the same story repeat itself. Every SOC, no matter how advanced it looks from the outside, ends up drowning in alerts and starving for strategy.
Detection Engineering teams keep adding new rules. Vendors keep pushing more “content updates”. Within days, new alerts appear in the queue, and analysts rush to triage what they barely understand. Most of these alerts have no playbook, no runbook, no explanation of what success even looks like. It feels busy, but not purposeful.
Sometimes I pause and ask myself, are we really detecting threats, or just reacting to noise that gives a sense of progress?
The real question for any leader is not “How many alerts did we close today?” but “Are we building a SOC that is maturing with the business?”
This blueprint comes from that thought. It is not a framework summary or another checklist. It is a field guide built on what I have seen, where I have failed, and what actually works. From raw log ingestion to executive outcomes, this is how a SOC grows from survival to strategy.
SOC Maturity Journey – Are we doing this right?
Maturity is not a switch. It is a slow climb that tests patience, clarity, and consistency. I have seen SOCs move through different stages, and what separates the good ones from the great is not just their tooling, but their ability to understand where they are and where they need to go.
Each stage tells a story of its own.
| Stage | Characteristics | Common Pitfalls |
|---|---|---|
| Reactive | Analysts fight fires daily with little documentation or structure. | Alert fatigue grows, responses differ from person to person, and learning never compounds. |
| Defined | Playbooks and roles exist, and tools are properly configured. | The focus shifts too much to compliance and not enough to outcomes. |
| Proactive | Threat hunting and process improvement start taking shape. | Hunting happens without clear intelligence. Teams chase shiny tools instead of real gaps. |
| Intelligence-Driven | Threat intelligence shapes detections and response. | Dependence builds on unverified feeds. Analysts trust data more than their own validation. |
| Business-Aligned | The SOC earns a seat at the table as a risk partner, not a cost centre. | The danger here is losing tactical agility while reporting upwards. |
📌 Reader checkpoint: Which stage most reflects your SOC today?
Thirdeye Intel SOC Self-Assessment Scorecard
Once a team understands where it truly stands, the next question is simple — how do we measure progress without fooling ourselves?
This scorecard is something I built from the ground up at Thirdeye Intel. It is short, practical, and brutally honest. Ten questions that tell you exactly how far your SOC has matured across people, process, and technology.
| Question | Yes (1) | No (0) |
|---|---|---|
| Do you have a SOC Charter? | ||
| Do you have a SOC-wide RACI matrix? | ||
| Are playbooks reviewed quarterly? | ||
| Do you track MTTD and MTTR consistently? | ||
| Does Tier 1 have clear escalation triggers? | ||
| Are logs prioritised by cost versus detection value? | ||
| Do you integrate threat intelligence into triage? | ||
| Is automation tracked as a percentage of alerts auto-triaged? | ||
| Are notable incidents clearly defined? | ||
| Do you have an analyst training pathway? | ||
| Are SOC metrics reported regularly to executives? |
📌 Action: Score out of 10 → Map to SOC-CMM stage (0–3 = reactive, 4–6 = defined, 7–8 = proactive, 9+ = intelligence-driven).
It is a simple exercise, yet when teams do it honestly, it reveals gaps they never noticed. That moment of self-awareness is where maturity begins.
Capability Pillars Beyond Detection & Response
A strong SOC is not built only on detections and responses. Those are important, but they are only two pieces of a larger picture. I have seen many SOCs struggle because they invested in technology but forgot to invest in the people and processes behind it. Not sure why People and Process pillars are never included in strategies.
Every SOC begins with the same foundation people, process, and technology. These three hold the entire structure together. But over time, I realised that even when they are strong, a SOC can still feel unbalanced.
That is because maturity does not come only from what we build, but from how we connect those parts. A truly future-ready SOC invests in its people, shapes its processes with intent, and selects technology that serves purpose, not trend.
| Pillar | What It Covers | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Governance | Policies, RACI, and backlog tracking. | Clear definitions of what counts as a notable incident. |
| Measurement | Metrics beyond alert counts. | Tracking MTTD, MTTR, and the percentage of automated actions. |
| People | Skills, growth, and culture. | A two-year training roadmap that includes certifications such as SC-200 or Splunk Fundamentals. |
📌 Case Card: SOC reduced turnover by 20% after publishing a 2-year analyst career pathway.
Still, these three alone are not enough. I have seen teams with excellent talent and advanced tooling lose direction because they had no system to measure or communicate progress.
That is why I often add two more supporting layers — governance and measurement. Governance keeps decisions transparent. Measurement keeps outcomes visible.
One SOC I worked with reduced turnover by twenty percent after publishing a simple analyst career pathway. It was not about salary or new technology. It was about clarity — and clarity is what turns activity into progress.
From here, the next step is learning how to balance the strategic and tactical sides of a SOC. Both matter, but knowing when to use which is what defines maturity.
Strategic vs Tactical View
Every SOC leader eventually learns that success is not only about fast responses but about the direction those responses lead. The tactical view keeps a SOC alive day to day. The strategic view ensures it keeps evolving year after year.
Tactical work is what most teams know well. It is the daily rhythm of playbooks, enrichment queries, and phishing triage. It keeps incidents contained and lessons flowing.
But the strategic view is what gives the SOC its voice in the organisation. It shapes board reporting, aligns operations with regulatory expectations, and helps justify investment decisions.
Both must exist together. Without the tactical side, nothing gets done. Without the strategic side, nothing moves forward.
I often tell teams to dedicate one slide pack every month purely for strategy. Something that captures trends, lessons, and progress that leadership can understand. In the past I did this with SOC Pulse. Their slides started with data, ended with outcomes, and helped them secure fifteen percent more budget in the next cycle.
When you communicate strategically, you stop defending cost and start showing value. Let’s see some examples in the next section.
📌 Example: SOC added “SOC Pulse” slides to board decks → unlocked 15% more tooling budget.
SOC in Action – Real-World Case Cards
Theory only matters when it works in the field. Real maturity shows in how a SOC reacts under pressure, when decisions need to be made with incomplete data and limited time.
Here are a few moments that still stay with me.
Case 1: Brute force attempts
Multiple attempts against set of accounts within minutes. The analysts correlated the pattern, confirmed no successful and has ensure conditional access blocks, and tuned the rule to cut down false positives. The attack was contained, and the lesson was simple, tuning is as important as detection.
Case 2: Business Email Compromise
The SOC noticed an unusual forwarding rule and a suspicious login in the same mailbox. They linked it to a potential invoice fraud attempt, coordinated with the DLP team, and contained it before any financial loss. What stood out here was the collaboration. Playbooks alone cannot solve BEC; communication does.
Case 3: Endpoint Credential Stealer
Beaconing through DNS logs pointed to a possible infostealer. The SOC confirmed the verdict through the sandbox and isolated the endpoint. The next day, the detection coverage was extended to SaaS endpoints. One small incident improved visibility across the environment.
These are small examples, but they show what maturity looks like in motion. From these cases, you can recognize some pattern and helps your in making decision about logs and alerts what to collect, what to ignore, and what to prioritize.
Decision Framework Sample – Logs vs Alerts
Every SOC wrestles with the same question. What data should we collect, and what can we safely leave out? Too much data clogs pipelines and budgets. Too little leaves blind spots. The real skill lies in knowing the difference.
I built this simple decision framework to help teams decide what is worth keeping and what should only trigger alerts. It has saved time, money, and a lot of unnecessary arguments about storage.
| Source | Log Type | Detection Value | Cost Impact | Guidance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EDR (Defender, CrowdStrike) | Alerts | High | Low | Ingest alerts only. |
| Active Directory | Kerberos and TGS Logs | Very High | Medium | Retain raw logs for at least ninety days. |
| SaaS (O365, Salesforce) | Audit Logs | Medium | Medium | Ingest selectively, alerts preferred. |
| Firewalls | Flow Logs | Low | High | Sample or rely on alerts. |
📌 Action: Maintain a Detection Gap Register: For each missed incident, ask: “Was this a logging gap or a tuning gap?”
The goal is not to collect everything, but to collect what tells a story when you need it most. Each missed incident should trigger a question was this a logging gap or a tuning gap? That single line of reflection builds a discipline around learning and resource management.
Now of course key discipline is how we escalate and communicate, which is covered in next section.
Escalation & Communication as a Discipline
Escalation is not just about who gets called. It is about how and when they are called. Many SOCs confuse movement with progress. Sending an alert to someone’s inbox does not mean the job is done.
I remind analysts that escalation is a conversation, not a transfer. It must carry analysis, evidence, and a clear recommendation. Without these, it is just noise moving upward.
A few principles that have served me well:
- Never escalate something that only needs review. Escalate when you have a conclusion or a question that demands action.
- For vendor SOCs, let them handle Tier 1, but ensure your internal on-call picks up escalations quickly and decisively.
- Use a simple, repeatable format every time.
Escalation Template
- Summary of alert.
- Evidence such as screenshots, logs, or event IDs.
- Actions already taken.
- Decision required.
One real example stays with me. A Tier 1 analyst at a vendor SOC escalated a suspected MFA bypass. They included the session ID and correlated activity logs. Tier 2 validated it, confirmed the anomaly, and triggered the on-call. The investigation finished in under thirty minutes.
The difference was not speed. It was clarity. Clear communication shortens every response.
When teams build that habit, threat intelligence integration becomes easier because everyone already speaks a common language.
📌 Example: Tier 1 (in-house/vendor) escalated MFA bypass with session ID → Tier 2 validated → on-call triggered.
Threat Intelligence Integration
Most SOCs consume threat intelligence, but few truly integrate it. Consuming data is easy. Acting on it with purpose is what separates mature SOCs from reactive ones.
Threat intelligence should drive action in three main ways:
- Supplier Risk: When TI feeds flag compromised suppliers, SOC playbooks should trigger relationship validation.
- Enrichment: IOC lookups and context must automatically enrich alerts.
- Proactive Hunts: Threat actor TTPs should translate into SIEM or EDR queries.
I recall one campaign that targeted firms in the same sector. The SOC picked up the indicators early, updated detection rules for specific subject-line patterns, and prevented a round of phishing attacks before they reached inboxes. When every playbook is linked with current threat intelligence, the SOC moves from reaction to anticipation. That anticipation is what leads naturally into automation not as a replacement for people, but as a way to amplify them.
📌 Example: TI flagged a phishing campaign targeting local firms within same sector. SOC proactively updated rules for subject-line patterns.
📌 Action: Link each playbook with Threat Analytics / TI reports.
Automation & AI in Context
Automation is not about replacing analysts. It is about reducing toil and magnifying judgment.
The first layer is simple enrichment. A workflow that automatically pulls WHOIS data, sandbox results, or geoIP details saves precious minutes during triage. The second is acceleration. AI can summarise multiple logs into one clear narrative that Tier 1 can understand quickly. And the third is smart routing. Alerts tagged with business criticality should automatically route to the right analyst or team.
I have seen a SOC reduce its phishing triage workload by forty percent just by using SOAR automation. Another reduced average phishing alert handling time from twenty minutes to five by automating URL detonation and enrichment. Automation done right does not remove people. It gives them time to think. And that thinking is what defines a mature SOC.
But thinking ahead also means planning for change because no SOC can stay static while threats evolve.
📌 Examples:
URL detonation + enrichment automated → reduced phishing alert handling from 20 mins → 5 mins
A SOC reduced phishing triage workload by 40% after SOAR implementation or Logic app automation.
Future-Proofing the SOC
Threats evolve faster than tools. That is the reality. The SOC of tomorrow will not only monitor security events but also interpret behaviour across systems, applications, and even business processes.
The future-ready SOC focuses on three areas:
- Fusion Approach: Integrating with fraud, physical security, and risk teams to share context and insight.
- Skills of Tomorrow: Building expertise in AI operations, cloud forensics, SaaS abuse detection, and purple teaming.
- Architecture Evolution: Moving beyond SIEM and SOAR into threat-led detection engineering and XDR-driven design.
One SOC I worked with started ingesting audit logs from Salesforce and Workday. Within weeks, they detected privilege abuse that their traditional SIEM would have missed. It was a reminder that visibility is not about volume, it is about relevance.
To track all this progress, a simple benchmark helps teams stay honest about their growth.
📌 Example: A SOC that added SaaS admin audit logs (Salesforce, Workday) caught privilege abuse attempts invisible in traditional SIEM.
Thirdeye Intel Assessment – Benchmarking SOC
I propose this lightweight assessment is inspired by SOC-CMM but shaped through experience. It focuses on four domains.
| Domain | Sample Question | Scoring (0–2) |
|---|---|---|
| People | Do you have a formal career pathway? | 0 = none, 1 = partial, 2 = yes. |
| Process | Are playbooks updated quarterly? | 0–2 |
| Technology | Is automation tracked as a KPI? | 0–2 |
| Governance | Is a SOC-wide RACI published? | 0–2 |
📌 Outcome: 0–10 = reactive, 11–15 = defined, 16–20 = proactive, 21+ = mature SOC.
Readers can score themselves today → repeat in 12 months for progress tracking. Can also add more questions based on table in the earlier section. Do it once today and repeat it in twelve months. You will see not just how your SOC has changed, but how your leadership has matured with it.
Conclusion
SOC maturity is not only about stopping threats. It is about aligning every decision to business value, reducing response times, and preparing teams for tomorrow’s risks.
By following this blueprint from log decisions to communication discipline to automation and measurement leaders can stop asking Are we doing it right? and start proving they are.
Because cybersecurity isn’t just a practice — it’s a reflection of character. Have a good day.
Thirdeye Intelligence 
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