A Day in the Life of a SOC 
Analyst: Inside 24/7 
Cybersecurity Operations

3:40 AM. A suspicious behavior is intercepted on a company’s networks. Instantly, the SOC analyst receives the alert, assesses the threat, and takes a course of action blocking the IP address and launching an investigation far before the beginning of the business day.  

This is the reality in modern cybersecurity. When cyber threats don’t operate on a schedule, neither can a company’s defenses. And at the heart of 24/7 protection are Security Operations Center (SOC) analysts. Highly trained professionals who monitor, detect, and respond to threats that compromise critical business operations. 

This blog explores a typical day in the life of a SOC analyst and how a managed SOC provider ensures round-the-clock protection. Let’s dive in.

What is a Security Operations Center (SOC)?

A Security Operations Center is a centralized team, tasked with continuously monitoring and analyzing an organization’s security posture. The SOC team detects, investigates, and responds to cybersecurity incidents using a combination of technology solutions and well-defined processes. For many businesses, especially small and mid-sized ones, maintaining an in-house SOC is resource intensive. That’s where a managed SOC partner steps in—delivering expert monitoring, threat detection, intelligence and response as a service. 

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A Walkthrough: How a SOC Analyst Operates Around the Clock

1. Morning Routine: Alert Review and Triage

A SOC analyst typically starts their day by reviewing the alerts that have been generated overnight by various security tools, such as the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system, Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS), and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions. The sheer volume of these alerts can be overwhelming, making it crucial to prioritize those that represent genuine threats.

Let's say: When a security alert is received, the analyst follows an internally developed and prescribed investigation path, which varies depending on the security alert under investigation. This can be visualized as a series of questions that the analyst must answer in order to determine the severity of an alert. For example:

• Is this a false alarm?
• Is the behavior known for this client, asset, or user?
• What activity caused this alert to trigger?
• Is this normal, the result of an error, or the work of a malicious actor?

SOC Analyst's actions include:

Initial Investigation: 

The analyst first examines the basic details of the alert, such as the source IP address, the destination IP address, the timestamp, and the rule that triggered the alert.

Threat Intelligence Gathering: 

The analyst then utilizes a Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP) or an integrated threat intelligence feed within the SIEM to investigate the destination IP address. The TIP might be integrated with open-source intelligence platforms or commercial threat intelligence providers. The TIP provides the following information

• Reputation Score: If the IP address has a poor reputation score (e.g., 95 out of 100), indicating it has been associated with malicious activities in the past.
• Threat Actor Association: If the IP address is linked to a known threat actor group.
• Observed Behaviors: If the IP address has been observed hosting command and control infrastructure for various malware families, including ransomware and trojans, and has been involved in past data exfiltration attempts.
• Geographic Location: If the geolocated country is known to be a source of cyberattacks.
• Related Indicators: The TIP might also show associated domain names, file hashes, or URLs that have been observed communicating with the IP address.

Contextualization: 

Armed with insights, the SOC analyst now has crucial context. The suspicious outbound connection is not just a random event but potentially a communication attempt with a known malicious entity associated with sophisticated threat actors.

Prioritization: 

Based on the information gathered above, the analyst prioritizes this alert as high severity, indicating a potential active threat that requires immediate investigation. This prevents the SOC analyst from wasting time on potentially benign alerts. 

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2. Mid-day: Incident Investigation and Response

Having identified a high-priority alert, the SOC analyst proceeds with a more in-depth investigation to understand the scope and impact of the potential threat.

What does a SOC Analyst do then:

Malware Analysis: 

The analyst retrieves the file hash from the EDR solution and uses the TIP, or a dedicated malware analysis platform integrated with threat intelligence feeds to analyze it. These platforms aggregate data from multiple antivirus engines and sandbox environments.

Insight Gathering: 

The threat intelligence platform identifies the file as a variant of a known ransomware family, or perhaps a variant based on signature analysis and behavior. The platform provides details about the ransomware, including:

• Capabilities: The ransomware encrypts user files with a specific extension and demands a ransom for decryption.
• Associated IOCs: The platform lists other known command and control servers (e.g., another IP address or a hidden service address), network traffic patterns (e.g., specific user-agent strings), and registry keys (e.g., a specific key used for persistence) associated with this ransomware family.
• Threat Actor Group: If the ransomware is attributed to a specific cybercriminal group known for targeting healthcare organizations for financial gain.
• Mitigation Strategies: Work on steps for containing (e.g., disconnecting the infected machine from the network), removing the ransomware (e.g., specific removal tools or manual steps), and potentially recovering encrypted files if a decryption tool is available.
• Incident Response: Using this insight, the SOC analyst can now take informed actions.

Containment: 

The SOC analyst isolates the infected workstation from the network to prevent the ransomware from spreading to other systems. This might involve disabling the network interface or isolating the host using the EDR solution.

Eradication: 

The SOC analyst then uses the information about the ransomware's behavior and persistence mechanisms to guide the removal process, potentially using the EDR solution's capabilities or other forensic tools.

Recovery: 

The analyst then checks if a decryption tool is available for the identified ransomware variant and initiates the recovery process if possible. If not, they might explore options for restoring from backups.

Blocking: 

The analyst adds the newly identified IOCs (command and control servers, malicious domains, file hashes) to the organization's firewalls, web proxies, and other security controls to prevent further communication with the attacker's infrastructure and block future infections.

3. Afternoon: Proactive Threat Hunting

Beyond reacting to alerts, SOC analysts also engage in proactive threat hunting to identify threats that might have bypassed initial security controls. Threat intelligence plays a crucial role in guiding these hunting activities. This includes:

Hypothesis Generation: 

The SOC analyst formulates a hunting hypothesis, for eg: There might be undetected instances of a new attack campaign within the network, potentially initiated through spear-phishing emails containing malicious attachments.

Hunting Query Creation: 

The analyst also uses the TTP information from the report and frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK to craft specific search queries in the SIEM and EDR solutions. These queries might look for:

• Emails with specific subject lines or sender patterns mentioned in the threat intelligence report, containing PDF attachments received within a specific timeframe.
• Endpoint activity indicative of the exploitation of the identified PDF vulnerability (e.g., specific process creations or unusual file modifications).
• Network traffic patterns indicative of SMB exploitation attempts originating from internal hosts.
• Unusual authentication attempts or account creations that might indicate successful lateral movement.
• Processes running on endpoints that match the behavior of tools commonly used by this threat actor for lateral movement. 

Analysis of Results: 

The SOC analyst analyzes the results of these hunting queries, looking for anomalies and indicators. If any suspicious activity is found, the analyst investigates further to determine if a compromise has occurred. This might involve examining logs on the affected systems, performing memory analysis, or isolating the host for further investigation.

Understanding the Intelligence: 

If a threat is found during hunting, the SOC analyst updates the organization’s threat intelligence with new indicators (like file hashes or compromised IPs) and attack patterns. This information can be shared with the broader security team and used to improve detection rules. 

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4. Continuous Improvement: Rule and Policy Updates

The insights gained from analyzing alerts, responding to incidents, and conducting threat hunting are valuable for improving the SOC's overall security posture. SOC Analyst's continues to:

Identify Gaps: 

If a particular attack technique highlighted in a report was not detected by the existing security controls, the analyst identifies this as a gap in the organization's defenses.

Update the Detection Rules: 

The SOC analyst uses the information about the attacker's TTPs and IOCs to create new detection rules or modify existing ones in the SIEM, IDS/IPS, and EDR solutions.

Refine Incident Response Playbooks: 

Based on the lessons learned from past incidents and the insights provided by threat intelligence, the SOC analyst updates incident response playbooks to ensure that the SOC team is prepared to handle similar incidents more effectively in the future.

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5. Collaboration and Information Sharing

There needs to be constant communication and collaboration within the SOC team and with other stakeholders. Sharing relevant insight ensures that everyone is aware of the current threats and can contribute to a coordinated security effort. For a SOC analyst this involves:

Sharing the Findings: 

The SOC analyst shares the findings of their investigations and threat hunting activities, along with relevant threat intelligence (e.g., IOCs, TTPs, summaries of threat actor behavior), with other members of the SOC team during shift handovers and team meetings.

Generating Reports: 

The analyst may contribute to the creation of reports for different audiences, including technical teams (providing detailed technical analysis) and management (providing a high-level overview of the risks and potential business impact).

External Sharing (Only when and where appropriate): 

Depending on the organization's policies and participation in information sharing communities, the SOC analyst might share relevant insights with trusted partners or industry groups to contribute to the broader cybersecurity community. 

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SOC-as-a-Service: For Advanced Round-the-clock Risk Management

Choosing a managed SOC partner is not just an IT decision. Today, when reputational damage from data breaches can be irreversible, investing in 24/7 security operations is essential. Organizations must assess their risk tolerance, compliance requirements (HIPAA, GDPR, PCI-DSS), and resource capabilities to determine the right partner.

This is where a managed security service provider like Cloud4C steps in.

Why Cloud4C is the Ultimate Cybersecurity Partner: For 24/7 SOC Needs and More

Reports suggest - on average, SOC teams receive 4,484 alerts daily and spend nearly three hours a day manually triaging security alerts. This puts cybersecurity SOC analysts in a tough position. They’re the first in line to stop active threats, and they have to know what’s going on in their networks at all times.

Cloud4C’s Managed SOC (Security Operations Center) acts as your business’s 24/7 digital command center—detecting, analyzing, and responding to security incidents in real time. Staffed by certified security analysts, threat hunters, and response specialists, Cloud4C’s globally distributed Tier-4 SOCs leverage advanced intelligent SIEM, SOAR, EDR, and UEBA technologies to provide unmatched visibility and control across the entire IT ecosystem. Whether it’s defending against ransomware, uncovering insider threats, or neutralizing phishing campaigns, Cloud4C’s SOC team works relentlessly to secure your enterprise with proactive monitoring, threat intelligence integration, and automated incident response.

Designed for multi-cloud and hybrid environments, Cloud4C’s SOC protects workloads on AWS, Azure, GCP, and private clouds—backed by industry-best SLAs and compliance assurance across GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and more.

Beyond the SOC, Cloud4C delivers an end-to-end security ecosystem through our SHOP (Self Healing Operations Platform) and fully managed security services. From identity and access management (IAM), data loss prevention (DLP), and vulnerability management to advanced cloud-native security and zero trust architecture, Cloud4C experts help organizations build a resilient and compliant defense posture.  

So, whether you're a digital-first enterprise, modernizing infrastructure, or expanding globally, Cloud4C can be your end-to-end security partner.

Contact us to know more and know how. 

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