Security automation refers to using software and technology to automate routine and repetitive security tasks, such as vulnerability scanning, attack surface discovery, patch management, and network monitoring. The approach helps reduce human error and improve response time to threats.

Security automation also frees up security professionals’ time to focus on critical tasks, such as developing security strategies and responding to complex security incidents.

How Does Security Automation Work?
Why Is Security Automation Important?
What Are the Benefits of Security Automation?

Security Automation: A Deep Dive

How Does Security Automation Work?

Security automation functions by integrating software solutions, scripts, and tools into an organization’s IT environment to carry out repetitive security tasks and procedures. Here’s a rundown of how the process works.

Integration into IT infrastructure: The first step involves integrating automation tools into an organization’s existing IT infrastructure, including endpoints, networks, servers, cloud resources, and other technological assets.
Setting up rules and policies: Based on an organization’s security needs and protocols, rules and policies are set within the automation tools. These rules define the actions a system will take when specific security events occur.
Continuous monitoring: Security automation tools continuously can monitor an organization’s digital environment. For instance, an attack surface management (ASM) platform can be set up to look for assets and scan them for vulnerabilities constantly. Some tools can also analyze logs and monitor network traffic and user behaviors, looking for anomalies or activities that match predefined threat patterns.
Event detection and analysis: When the automation tool detects an event that matches one of its predefined rules or policies, it captures details and conducts an automated analysis to determine its severity and potential impact. For example, ASM platforms can analyze system vulnerabilities and rank them according to severity and impact.
Automated response: The system can initiate predefined actions depending on the event detected and its severity. For instance, if the system detects a high-severity vulnerability in an asset, it may automatically alert members of the security teams, provide remediation tips, and open a ticket.
Feedback loop: The results of the automated responses are evaluated at this stage. The feedback is essential for refining and optimizing automation rules, ensuring fewer false positives and improved accuracy in future detections.
Reporting: Automation tools generate reports detailing security events, actions taken, and an organization’s current security posture. These reports can be crucial for compliance, audits, and security reviews.

Why Is Security Automation Important?

The growing number and complexity of cyber threats is the primary reason why organizations need to perform security automation. Automated systems can detect and respond to threats more swiftly and effectively than manual methods.

Security teams also need a system that helps them deal with a deluge of alerts daily. Since automation can filter and prioritize issues, high-impact threats can be detected and mitigated faster.

The shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals is another reason for using security automation. The process allows organizations to maximize the efficiency of their current teams and bridge the skills gap.

Security Automation vs Security Orchestration

There’s another cybersecurity term that you can often hear when talking about automating manual processes in security tools, and that’s security orchestration.

The concept of security orchestration is somewhat similar, yet different. Cybersecurity automation is about automating some tasks within one system or tool. Orchestration – as the name suggests – is about making multiple tools or systems work together.

These two processes are mutually beneficial – the more you automate within one tool, the easier it is to call those tasks from other security tools. And the more security systems you orchestrate to work together, the more tasks you can potentially automate.

Types of Security Automation Tools

There are a lot of different types of security automation tools, below we’ll list the most widely used ones:

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms combine incident response, automation and orchestration, and threat intelligence management to streamline cybersecurity processes in the organization. Gartner points out that they help support security incident management and support human analyst efforts with machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) tools consolidate data from endpoints, networks, and cloud environments, analyzing it and helping discover advanced attacks.
Vulnerability Management Automation Platforms help security analysts find, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities in the organization’s attack surface. Read our guide to learn more about vulnerability management.

What Are the Benefits of Security Automation?

Organizations that employ security automation enjoy these benefits.

Reduced human error: Misconfigurations or overlooked alerts can lead to security breaches. Automation minimizes errors by handling repetitive tasks and enforcing consistent security policies.

Faster threat detection and incident response: Automated tools can respond to threats in real time, mitigating potential damage.

Round-the-clock monitoring: Since cyber threats can occur at any time, organizations must be protected even when human operators are unavailable. Security automation helps through continuous monitoring.

Consistent: Automation ensures that specific processes and policies are applied consistently across an organization.

Cost efficiency: By streamlining processes and reducing the need for manual intervention, organizations can achieve better security outcomes at reduced costs.

Enhanced compliance: Many industries have regulatory requirements for data protection and security. Automated reporting and compliance checks ensure that organizations meet these standards without exerting much manual effort.

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Security automation is a valuable practice that can help organizations improve their security posture. By automating security tasks, they can reduce the risk of human error, improve efficiency, and enable security professionals to concentrate on more strategic tasks.

Key Takeaways

Security automation refers to using software to automate routine and repetitive security tasks.
It can help reduce human error, improve threat response times, and free up security professionals to focus on more strategic tasks.
It is essential to carefully evaluate an organization’s needs before deploying automation.
Reduced human error and faster incident response are just some of the benefits of security automation.
One of the reasons organizations need to employ security automation is to keep up with the growing cyber threat landscape.

Did you know that attack surface discovery can be automated? Contact us today to learn how Attaxion can help improve your security processes.

Security Automation

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