What is a Security Operations Centre (SOC)?

What is a SOC?

A Security Operations Centre (SOC) consists of a team of security experts who monitor and analyse the information security threats and respond to the cyber security incidents facing an organisation. 

The SOC’s primary function is to protect a company from cyber attacks and to prevent data breaches. Through 24/7 system monitoring they are able to detect suspicious activity and prevent an attack from happening by detecting unusual user or traffic behaviour. The SOC team also evaluate each IT environment and enhance the security by identifying potential areas of risk to cyber attack. They will analyse incoming cyber threats and where necessary introduce measures to reduce the risk.

With the cost of cyber crime in the UK at an estimated £2.5bn in 2021,  a SOC is critical to business longevity and is a cost effective solution to protect your business from cyber criminals.

The Evolving Importance of a SOC for Business Success

As technology continues to evolve and people’s habits change, the need for a SOC is ever increasing. Cyber criminals are constantly advancing their techniques to take advantage of their targets by staying one step ahead. Companies can no longer rely only on permitter defences to prevent a cyber attack; specialist skills are required to monitor all aspects of a companies IT infrastructure.

The SOC’s role is even more important now as since the COVID-19 pandemic, working habits have evolved and extended the workspace into insecure homes and public spaces. Working remotely (whether it is from home or travelling) dramatically increases the risk of a cyber attack, with 46% of businesses experiencing at least one cyber security incident within the first two months of working remotely.

By having a dedicated SOC team, peace of mind will inherently increase for both employees and clients alike. All stakeholders can be assured that the business has the necessary steps in place to:

  • Protect all client data with the highest of standards;
  • Avoid the legal consequences of poor data management; and
  • Reduce the risk of reputational damage resulting from a data breach.
what is a security operations centre (SOC)?

What Does a SOC Do?

Proactive Protection

A SOC works around the clock to actively protect business data. There are many different techniques used to do this, however all SOCs tend to revolve around the same three key elements:

  1. Prevention: Prevention is the first step to data protection. To prevent data breaches and cyber attacks from happening, a SOC analyses the infrastructure and will make recommendations to enhance the cyber posture. 
  1. Protection: To protect, a SOC team will consume data from all IT artifacts and network traffic to analyse it for anomalous behaviour and indications of compromise. By actively ‘threat hunting’, the SOC team will proactively react to cyber threats in real-time. 
  1. Detection: AI-driven cyber security enables a thorough understanding of all traffic to continuously monitor the environment, detect and mitigate threats and avoid any false positives.

Incident Response & Recovery

If the inevitable happens and when a company is compromised, a SOC is able to help organisations to recover from incidents (both during and after an attack has taken place). The SOC will reduce the impact of a cyber attack on a business by working quickly to isolate the source. Assuming offline backups are available, the SOC will provide assistance in rebuilding the compromised environment and preventing a reoccurrence.  

It has been reported that every 11 seconds globally a company is compromised by a ransomware attack (costing an estimated $20bn in 2021). These attacks encrypt data, delete backups and demand ransoms to decrypt the data.

As a business, relying on permitter defence alone is no longer an option. Leave your details below to arrange an assessment of your current cyber security landscape and see how we can start protecting you.

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Kurt Schrauwen

kurt SCHRAUWEN

Director

Kurt Schrauwen is a Director of the Riela Group of companies which includes Riela Yachts, Riela Cyber and Riela Tech. 

Kurt brings more than 20 years of leadership experience having been an early part of the global success of Microgaming in becoming a market leader. Kurt was responsible for the commercial, contractual, and technical sales for Microgaming and with this experience will complement the company’s growth strategy.

Kurt is passionate about business optimisation and prides himself in having an intrapreneurial outlook to maximise staff potential, reduce inefficiencies as well as identifying and maturing revenue growth opportunities.

Paul Cocker

Service Delivery Coordinator

Paul Cocker joined the Riela Group in late 2021, after spending just under 20 years with his previous employer.

Paul is responsible for the Riela Tech service levels, working on both the dispatch function and SLA management. Paul carries out a variety of duties across the Network Operations Centre and works closely across the wider team to deliver professionally tailored solutions for our Riela Tech clients.

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Murat Guner

Infrastructure Engineer

Murat Guner joined the Riela Group in the Summer of 2021 as an Infrastructure Engineer.

Murat began his career in Turkey as a computer teacher for primary and secondary schools before migrating his skills into IT infrastructure. After honing his IT experiences throughout a colourful career path, Murat gained numerous qualifications which he is now excited to apply to the management of our Riela Tech infrastructure.

Andrew Clucas

Senior Network Engineer

Andy is a qualified Network Engineer with in-depth knowledge of architecting, implementing and supporting networking solutions in the SMB, Enterprise and Service Provider environments.

He has over 20 years of experience working across multiple vendor operating systems, including Cisco, Juniper, Linux and Microsoft, and has also been responsible for implementing a variety of large scale network services deployments, taking projects from design to rollout and support.

Andy also has experience of deploying and migrating a range of virtualisation technologies including VMWare, Hyper-V and KVM based systems.

Marc Dorey

Infrastructure & Managed Services Lead

Marc is our Group’s Infrastructure and Managed Services lead with over 18 years’ experience in delivering infrastructure projects across multiple industry verticals and international jurisdictions.  From projects in Aerospace and Engineering through to Banking and Insurance, from Europe, China, Africa and Australia.

This experience is matched with a varied list of certifications from leading industry vendors such as Hp, Cisco, Microsoft, Ruckus, CompTIA and more.  As a qualified technical trainer Marc is comfortably able to take complicated technical concepts and deliver them in simplistic terms to key decision makers and end users alike.

Most of Marc’s experience has been gained working for managed service providers, both large and niche and as such is able to take real world experience and blend it with industry standards to help align our service delivery with our clients values and processes.

Alexandria halsall

Marketing Executive

As a Marketing Executive, Alex is responsible for all marketing duties spanning the Riela Group.

Alex joined the Riela Group in August 2020, shortly after graduating with a Psychology degree from Nottingham Trent University.

With past work experience in content marketing, event management and web design, Alex is able to apply her creative and analytical skills into the Riela strategy.

Matthew Roberts

Group Head of Sales

As the Head of Group Sales at the Riela family of companies, Matthew leads the company’s sales strategy, execution, and growth.

Matthew has a successful record building trusted client relationship and delivering upon set expectations. An accomplished sales leader, he delivers a sales process that provides clients with the information and support they need to make the right decisions for their organisations and their constituents.

Matthew has significant experience within the maritime industry having previously worked across various sectors including insurance, security, satellite communications and managed IT. Matthew’s most recent experience encompasses almost 5 years spent with the leading satellite communications and managed IT provider in the maritime industry, focusing on their superyacht clientele.

Christian Goelz Riela Cyber

christian goelz

Director

Christian is involved across the Riela family of companies with particular attention to the technology businesses, Cyber and Tech.

Christian gained a postgraduate Master in Finance degree at the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland and completed his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Before joining us, Christian worked for six years at Argosy Capital, an Isle of Man-based private equity and venture capital business focusing on early-stage growth businesses. At Argosy, he focused on managing investment companies, research and financial analysis and served as a director on several boards.

ROBERT TOBIN

Riela Group Managing Director

Robert Tobin is the Managing Director of the Riela Group of Companies and is responsible in overseeing our business operations, our people and driving excellence in all we do.

Rob brings over 25 years’ of successful leadership and entrepreneurial experience across a range of industries including Family Office, corporate services, construction engineering, Superyachts, cyber security and information technology development to our Group, and to our customers.

In the past 15 years Rob has gained a prominent reputation within the Superyacht industry for his passion, integrity, innovation and achievements to date.

“Being part of an awesome, capable and forward thinking team that have a shared passion for Superyachts, people and the environment is the highlight of my career and puts a smile on my face and a spring in my step everyday”.

Peter Astell Burt

Director

Peter is an experienced technology consultant with a demonstrated history of working in the IT and cyber security industry.  Skilled in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), IT Strategy, Start-ups, Regulations, and Online Gaming. Strong consulting professional with a DPhil focused in Natural Sciences from ChristChurch, Oxford.

Tim Bliss

Tim Bliss

Director

Tim Bliss, Managing Director of Riela Tech since the company foundation in 2015 and Director of Riela Cyber, brings over 20 years’ of successful leadership experience across a range of industries including finance and banking, software development, and manufacturing, as well as cyber security and information technology. Prior to forming the company he led the technology for Manx Financial Group PLC, where he was instrumental in business systems transformation.

“It is our hugely capable team of experts that drives our business – it is fantastic and rewarding to be able to use technology, intelligence, and great customer service to help make our clients’ business and staff progressively more efficient resilient and secure”