Staying Ahead of Cybersecurity Threats: Why SOCaaS Is a Game-Changer for SMBs
As cyberthreats increase, simply being “at risk” isn’t the problem. It’s being a target. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are facing a growing wave of cyberattacks, with 94% experiencing at least one in 2024 alone. Limited budgets, talent shortages, and increasingly complex threats make maintaining an in-house Security Operations Center (SOC) impractical for most. That’s where SOC as a Service (SOCaaS) steps in. By outsourcing cybersecurity monitoring and response, businesses can stay protected 24×7 while freeing up internal resources. In this article, we explore the benefits of SOCaaS, how it strengthens your security posture, and how Atomic Data delivers an enterprise-grade solution tailored to your needs.
Staying Ahead of Cybersecurity Threats with SOCaaS
It’s one thing to be at risk. It’s another to be a target.
Data from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reveals that 73% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) experienced a cyberattack, data breach, or both in 2023, a significant jump from the 58% attack rate in 2021 and 43% in 2022. The State of SMB Cybersecurity in 2024, conducted by Vanson Bourne, notes that 94% of SMBs experienced at least one cyberattack over the course of the year.
The ever-evolving threat landscape and surface has made protecting critical information and assets a growing challenge; one often compounded by limited resources, a shortage of skilled security professionals, and tight budgets. And for many small to medium-sized businesses, building and maintaining an in-house security operations center (SOC) is simply not feasible.
This is where Security Operations Center as a Service (SOCaaS) comes in. SOCaaS provides a comprehensive, outsourced solution for monitoring, detecting, and responding to cybersecurity threats around the clock. By leveraging a third-party provider, businesses can gain access to a dedicated team of security experts and advanced technologies without the high costs and complexities of managing an in-house team.
The Benefits of Embracing SOCaaS
Opting for a SOCaaS solution offers several key advantages that can help businesses bolster their security posture and achieve a better work-life balance for their IT staff.
- Resource Optimization: One of the most significant benefits is the ability to extend your existing IT team. Instead of going through the costly and time-consuming process of hiring and training new security professionals, you gain immediate access to certified experts. This model allows you to scale your security efforts on demand, ensuring that your protection levels align with your changing business needs.
- Improved Security Posture: With SOCaaS, you get continuous, 24×7 monitoring, which means no gaps in your security coverage. This includes proactive, advanced threat hunting to identify potential issues before they can impact your business, as well as regular updates to keep your systems protected against the latest threats. Furthermore, a robust SOCaaS offering can assist with meeting regulatory compliance requirements.
- Enhanced Work-Life Balance: The constant stream of security alerts can be overwhelming for any IT department. A SOCaaS provider handles this, reducing alert fatigue and allowing your team to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the business forward. This means no more middle-of-the-night emergency calls for your staff and greater peace of mind knowing that experts are watching over your environment around the clock.
- Financial Advantages: By converting capital expenditures into predictable monthly operational costs, SOCaaS makes budgeting for security more manageable. It also reduces overhead by eliminating the need for specialized infrastructure and office space. Faster incident response leads to less business disruption, minimizing the financial impact of any potential security breaches.
Atomic Data’s SOC as a Service: A Comprehensive Solution
Atomic Data’s Security Operations Center as a Service (SOCaaS) delivers enterprise-grade protection that covers everything from your firewall to servers, endpoints, and cloud applications. Our solution is designed to provide you with peace of mind by offering 24×7 monitoring, event response, remediation, and advanced analytics. It includes:
- A Unified, Intelligent Platform: We provide a single, integrated platform that includes a fully managed, cloud-based SOC, SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response), and Risk Scoring. Our solution uses machine learning and user behavior analytics to predict threats across your entire digital footprint. We don’t just read logs; we correlate and analyze all data to track anomalous behavior across people, applications, and cloud environments.
- True Threat Detection and Response: Our proprietary technology ensures that at least 95% of alerts are true positives, correlating anomalous behavior to provide intelligent incidents rather than a flood of false alarms. When a threat is validated, we don’t just hand off the problem—we step in immediately to shut down affected systems and begin remediation.
- Comprehensive Monitoring: Our service monitors your on-premise infrastructure, including servers, workstations, and firewalls, with support for hundreds of integrations. We also provide robust cloud monitoring for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, as well as productivity suites like Office 365 and Google Workspace. This includes support for hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
- Flexible and Client-Focused: We understand that every business has unique needs. For clients with an existing EDR solution like CrowdStrike, our SOCaaS offering can be integrated to feed alerts through our platform, with the labor to resolve issues falling under the recurring services contract. For those looking for a comprehensive solution, our embedded EDR performs the same functions and can be part of a methodical transition plan. The implementation of our SOCaaS is seamless and is not a billable effort for the client.
- AI Powered: AI is at the core of the platform. Paired with real-time threat intelligence and correlations to continuously analyze massive volumes of security data in milliseconds, it delivers pinpoint accuracy, relentless speed, and non-stop protection. Where traditional MDR and SOAR solutions depend on static playbooks and human response, SOCaaS adapts in real time, responding to threats within seconds, not hours. With a 98% accuracy rate, we minimize your cyber risk while keeping your operations running without disruption.
A Brief Use Case
A Midwest financial services organization with six locations is a prime example of our service’s impact. They came to us with significant gaps in their security framework, including insufficient threat monitoring and a lack of timely alerting from their previous vendor. After implementing our SOCaaS solution, they saw a dramatic improvement in their security score, from the 400s to over 800. They also achieved stronger cyber hygiene through proactive vulnerability management and gained regulatory confidence with their enhanced security measures.
Are you ready to enhance your security posture and free up your IT team to focus on what matters most? To learn more, reach out to our Solutions Consultants or download the PDF.
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