How to Help SOC Teams Become More Resilient to Burnout and High Stress
How to Help SOC Teams Become More Resilient to Burnout and High Stress
SOC teams work on the front lines to defend their organizations from cyber threats. Those drawn to be a part of SOC teams often get a great sense of purpose and impact while working in a dynamic and complex field. However, the relentless pace and sheer volume of threats these teams face daily can push even the most dedicated pros to the brink, leading to high stress and burnout. While these issues might be prevalent, they don’t need to be unmanageable. Here’s how to build more resilience in SOC teams.
Understanding the Stressors
Stress might be an inevitable part of the SOC role; it comes with the territory. But it’s a problem that’s getting worse and reducing resilience. A recent report found that 63% of SOC analysts felt burnout, and 81% reported higher workloads over the past year.
Many SOCs suffer from understaffing. This shortage puts an extra burden on the existing staff by requiring them to manage more alerts and incidents than is feasibly manageable within a standard workday. Understaffing leads to longer hours, increased responsibilities, and an unending Sisyphean backlog of tasks that never seems to reduce.
Alongside understaffing, workload increases naturally as networks expand and attackers continuously innovate with new and more complex strategies. Each new part of the tech stack within an organization can potentially open new vectors for attacks, which SOC teams must monitor and defend. As the security landscape broadens, the volume of alerts and incidents escalates, adding to the stress on an already overtaxed team.
Tackling these issues to build SOC resilience calls for a strategy that accounts for stress management, work culture concerns, tools and automation, and different training techniques.
Promoting a Healthy Work Culture
A supportive work culture is fundamental to the resilience of SOC teams. Fostering a culture that emphasizes open communication, regular feedback, and realism helps offset some of the stress that inevitably comes with the job.
Open communication includes regular meetings where team members can discuss not only ongoing threats and technical challenges but also any issues they face regarding workload or stress. Encouraging an atmosphere where it's safe to express concerns without fear of repercussion allows for a more supportive environment. Tools like internal chat apps can be used to maintain a continuous open line among team members.
Leadership is also pivotal in shaping work culture and overall SOC team resilience. Leaders and SOC managers must not only be technically proficient but also skilled in people management. They need to recognize and empathize with the intense pressures their teams face and act to mitigate them.
Setting achievable, clear expectations guides SOC operations without overburdening teams. This involves understanding the capabilities and limits of their team members and setting goals that are challenging yet attainable. Those in charge must acknowledge the limits of what can be accomplished under current staffing levels and actively work with employees to set achievable goals. Realistic expectations help prevent scenarios where analysts feel perpetually overwhelmed and are always on the brink of burnout.
Advocating for and implementing policies that promote work-life balance, like flexible work hours, opportunities for remote work, and sufficient downtime between shifts, are also important aspects of resilience to consider. Given the high workloads, offering flexible working hours can help staff manage their stress better. Flexibility allows employees to work at their most productive times and balance personal responsibilities, which can reduce burnout and improve overall job satisfaction.
Structured Stress Management Programs
Given how widespread high stress and burnout are in SOC roles, it is prudent to also address the issue directly by actively helping to improve how personnel manage stress. Stress management workshops can teach techniques such as deep breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, and effective time management skills.
Workshops can be conducted monthly and should be tailored to address the unique stressors faced by SOC teams. Effective stress management improves handling of high-pressure situations, emotional regulation during peak times of stress, and reduces feelings of anxiety and burnout among team members.
Mindfulness meditation can also work very well at strengthening psychological resilience. An article from Counseling and Family Therapy Scholarship Review describes how mindfulness helps people “respond to unanticipated internal and external events effectively and adaptively, tolerate uncertainty, and keep a ‘present-focus’ that’s central to being psychologically resilient.” All of these benefits apply directly to the challenges that cause much of the stress and burnout tendencies in SOC contexts.
Get Help from Tools and Automation
Help from different tools and automation can alleviate some of the burdensome parts of the job that result in burnout. Automation is particularly good at reducing the tedium of routine tasks and allowing SOC analysts to focus on more strategic, intellectually engaging activities.
One of the primary sources of stress and burnout in SOCs is the overwhelming volume of alerts, many of which are false positives. This constant flow requires analysts to spend a significant amount of time distinguishing between benign activities and genuine threats. Automated alert management systems can drastically reduce this burden.
Systems like SIEMs, equipped with advanced analytics, machine learning algorithms, and threat intelligence integration, can automatically filter out many false positives. By prioritizing alerts based on risk and context, these systems enable analysts to focus on alerts that truly require human intervention.
Beyond just SIEMs though, there’s great automation potential in systems like User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) that use AI to understand typical behavior patterns and automatically flag activities that deviate from these patterns to indicate potential security incidents.
Also, with advances in generative AI continuing apace, AI-driven assistants can now manage the initial stages of alert investigation by gathering necessary information and performing preliminary analysis. They act as a first line of defense so your human analysts can focus on more complex and nuanced security issues.
Training and Professional Development as Tools for SOC Resilience
Continuous learning empowers SOC analysts by boosting their confidence and competence in handling threats. This empowerment reduces feelings of helplessness and anxiety, which are common precursors to stress and burnout. When analysts feel well-prepared and capable, they are more likely to approach challenges with a positive attitude and less likely to feel overwhelmed by the pressures of their role.
Of particular value here are simulation-based training exercises that help analysts practice their responses to high-stress scenarios in a no-risk environment. This preparedness not only improves technical response capabilities but also helps in reducing anxiety associated with unexpected or unfamiliar threats. Knowing that they have successfully managed a similar situation in a training simulation can provide psychological comfort and reduce stress in real-world incidents.
By engaging in simulations together, team members can strengthen their bonds and improve their communication. Importantly, many teams look forward to these training sessions as a rewarding break from the pressures of real-world threats. In simulated environments, the stakes are educational rather than existential, which allows your teams to explore complex scenarios without fearing real-world repercussions. This shift from high-stress to a controlled, collaborative learning experience can be highly motivating.
Also, the monotony of facing similar tasks without growth or variation can lead to disengagement and burnout. Simulated exercises or tabletop exercises can introduce new skills and concepts to keep the job role dynamic and interesting.
Cloud Range’s immersive, live-fire cyber simulations provide your SOC team with a customized, safe environment on a cyber range, where they can practice and prepare for real-world cyber attacks. The platform enables teams to use the same tools they would in their daily work, emulates your network setup, and provides several types of exercises and attack “missions.” This preparation builds SOC team resilience by empowering staff with the confidence to handle real-life threats and high-pressure situations effectively.
