Blue Team Handbook: SOC, SIEM, and Threat Hunting Use Cases is having an amazing impact on Security Operations worldwide. BTHb:SOCTH is the go to guiding book for new staff at a top 10 MSSP, integrated into University curriculum, and cited in top ten courses from a major information security training company. This listing is for V1.02.BTHb:SOCTH provides the security practitioner with numerous field notes on building a security operations team, managing SIEM, and mining data sources to get the maximum amount of information out of them with a threat hunting approach. The author shares his fifteen years of experience with SIEMs and security operations is a no frills, just information format. Don Murdoch has implemented five major platforms, integrated over one hundred data sources into various platforms, and ran an MSSP practice for two years.This book covers the topics below using a “zero fluff” approach as if you hired him as a security consultant and were sitting across the table with him (or her).The book begins with a discussion for professionals to help them build a successful business case and a project plan, decide on SOC tier models, anticipate and answer tough questions you need to consider when proposing a SOC, and considerations in building a logging infrastructure. The book goes through numerous data sources that feed a SOC and SIEM and provides specific real world guidance on how to use those data sources to best possible effect. Most of the examples presented were implemented in one organization or another. These uses cases explain on what to monitor, how to use a SIEM and how to use the data coming into the platform, both questions that Don found is often answered poorly by many vendors. Several business concepts are also introduced, because they are often overlooked by IT: value chain, PESTL, and SWOT. Major sections include:An inventory of Security Operations Center (SOC) Services.Metrics, with a focus on objective measurements for the SOC, for analysts, and for SIEM's.SOC staff onboarding, training topics, and desirable skills. Along these lines, there is a chapter on a day in the life of a SOC analyst.Maturity analysis for the SOC and the log management program. Applying a Threat Hunt mindset to the SOC. A full use case template that was used within two major Fortune 500 companies, and is in active use by one major SIEM vendor, along with a complete example of how to build a SOC and SIEM focused use case. You can see the corresponding discussion of this chapter on YouTube. Just search for the 2017 Security Onion conference for the presentation.Critical topics in deploying SIEM based on experience deploying five different technical platforms for nineteen different organizations in education, nonprofit, and commercial enterprises from 160 to 30,000 personnel.Understanding why SIEM deployments fail with actionable compensators. Real life experiences getting data into SIEM platforms and the considerations for the many different ways to provide data. Issues relating to time, time management, and time zones.
