7 Essential Skills Required for a SOC Analyst Job

Introduction

The threat environment is constantly changing, and SOC analyst jobs are having to take on new duties. A skills assessment and a commitment to ongoing upskilling are essential for professional advancement in this age of increased demand to adapt to new technologies and dangers.

Whether they are seasoned pros or recent graduates, SOC analysts need to grasp both hard and soft skills to succeed in their positions. By mastering these abilities, you’ll become a more capable analyst and establish yourself as a progressive SOC who sets the standard.

Who is the SOC Analyst

Security Operations Centre is referred to as SOC. When you combine this with the word analyst, you get a specialist who protects the vital IT infrastructure of a company.

In essence, a SOC analyst keeps a close eye on all computer systems used by an organization, looking for any unusual activity or security lapses. When something seems off, they look into it to see whether there is a true risk to the business.

They are a crucial member of any organization’s cyber security team since they are responsible for recognizing, looking into, and raising security alarms.

SOC Analyst Job Requirements

To become a SOC analyst, there are no requirements or boxes that must be checked. You can, however, take a few actions to get your foot in the door.

• Education: While a bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, or a similar discipline can be helpful, it is not necessary to have one to pursue a career in cyber security.
• Certifications: The majority of SOC analysts hold CompTIA certifications, which include Security+, and A+. The Certified Defensive Security Analyst (CDSA), a very practical certification that evaluates candidates’ security analysis, SOC operations, and incident handling abilities, is available at Hack The Box (HTB). Not to mention that it highlights every talent on the following list and looks fantastic on your resume!
• Relevant experience: Whether you have handled some HTB machines or worked at a help desk in information security in the past, demonstrating your practical abilities or expertise will make you stand out.

7 Essential Skills Required for a SOC Analyst Job

The breadth of SOC analysts’ responsibilities expands along with the demand for them. The number of companies that have migrated to the cloud and adopted remote work has increased dramatically in recent years, increasing their attack surface.

Because of this, SOC analysts must always improve their skills to keep on top of the most recent infrastructure threats and attacks. To properly protect an organization’s systems, current analysts must acquire a variety of abilities.

A job as a SOC analyst requires first laying the technical understanding. You’ll be well-positioned for success and be able to protect IT infrastructure with these abilities. Many of these can be acquired by practical upskilling.

1. Programming Skills

• To develop threat mitigation techniques, SOC analysts frequently work with cyber security engineers and security specialists. Thus, to assist you and other teams in analyzing big datasets, identifying dangers, and developing network monitoring and incident response tools, a working knowledge of coding and programming is essential.

2. Incident Handling & Documentation

• In the field of cyber security, an incident is any occurrence that jeopardizes the availability, confidentiality, or integrity of a data source or information system.
• Simply a possible danger could harm a network or surroundings.
  Teams utilize incident handling, which is a well-defined set of protocols, to record, monitor, and quickly address both real and imagined threats.

3. Log Analysis

• A log is a comprehensive computer record that keeps track of information by recording messages, errors, file transfers, requests for files, and sign-in requests.
• Reviewing and analyzing these logs in order to find defects or possible security risks is called a log analysis. If you want to be sure that users are complying, you may also perform a log analysis.
• A log analysis is frequently mandated by law to guarantee adherence to regulatory standards. To guarantee that abnormalities are promptly detected and dangers are minimized, a SOC analyst must also be proficient in log analysis.

4. Threat Hunting

• Reducing the “dwell time” between a security breach’s actual occurrence and discovery is one aspect of a SOC analyst’s job description.
• Now for threat hunting. For SOC analysts, this is a critical ability since it shortens dwell times and thwarts bad actors early in the cyber death chain.
• What then is involved in threat hunting? This procedure entails keeping an eye on and analyzing network data to find more cunning threats that can get past security measures that are currently in place.

5. Network Traffic Analysis

• You are the gatekeeper and guardian of the network inside your company as a SOC analyst. You therefore must keep an eye out for, identify, and evaluate any possible risks that may be gaining access to or penetrating the network.

6. Digital Forensics & Incident Response (DFIR) skills

• Any SOC analyst should have DFIR skills in their toolbox. By utilizing forensic science in defense, cyber attacks can be promptly detected, looked into, and stopped.

There are two skill sets in DFIR:

• Digital forensics is the study of digital evidence to learn more about an attack and possibly identify the offenders. Information on devices may be recovered, looked into, examined, and analyzed.
• The procedure you use to get ready for, identify, stop, and clean up after a potential data breach is known as incident response.

7. Cloud Security Expert

• Our reliance on the cloud to host IT infrastructure and store data is growing as our workforce grows more dispersed due to a dramatic increase in remote work. This was brought to light in our SOC analyst research, which revealed that more than 40% of experts think analysts’ top priorities over the next five years will be cloud security expertise.
• For the upcoming generation of analysts responsible for safeguarding cloud infrastructure, being able to identify vulnerabilities in cloud landscapes more effectively is essential.

Conclusion

Hence, here in this blog, we have covered the 7 essential skills required for a SOC Analyst job. Hope after reading this blog you are now able to find out some skill sets to become a job-ready person as a SOC Analyst.

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