– SECURITY OPERATIONS
SOAR Design & Implementation
Faster, Smarter, More Consistent Security Operations. Automation That Turns Your SOC Into a Force Multiplier.
Helping organizations streamline and automate their security operations through expert SOAR design, playbook development, and platform deployment. Eristotle partners with security teams to translate operational demands, incident playbooks, and business priorities into a tailored SOAR capability, turning manual, fragmented processes into orchestrated, automated, and measurable response that scales with evolving threats.
Observe. Orient. Decide. Act.
As cyber threats grow increasingly complex, organizations need to streamline and automate their security operations to keep pace. Eristotle’s Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Design & Implementation Service supports clients throughout the SOAR journey, leveraging an Observe–Orient–Decide–Act (OODA) model to accelerate detection, standardize response, and elevate SOC effectiveness.
Whether you are starting from scratch or optimizing an existing platform, Eristotle’s modular approach adapts to the unique challenges of each environment, risk profile, and operational model. Our service is built around five core building blocks that can be consumed individually or combined into an end-to-end solution:
- SOAR Playbook Assessment
- SOAR Playbook Development
- SOAR Playbook Deployment
- SOAR Architecture
- SOAR Deployment
Clients can select the modules that best fit their requirements, whether they lack a SOAR platform entirely, need help building out priority playbooks, or are fine-tuning specific components of an established system.
Aligned to ISOBOK™ – A Consensus Driven Standard
ISOBOK™ is developed through a rigorous consensus-driven standards development process and incorporates the collective wisdom and experience of experts in the field from around the world. It defines the skills and knowledge required by ISO professionals.
- Contains a description of generally accepted practices for the establishment of Information Security Offices.
- Community driven and consensus based, continuously updated through iterations.
- Techniques are transferable with option to modify concepts and best practices for wide range of organizational contexts.
- Includes the highly valued Reporting Framework.
1. Security Leadership
- Defines the ISO’s role, competencies, and mindset, including the different types of ISOs.
- Establishes the security organisation’s structure, charter, and board-level mandate.
- Aligns with industry standards and frameworks to develop a comprehensive security strategy.
- Covers setting up budgets, initiating security programs, and embedding the function into enterprise governance.
2. Security Culture
- Emphasizes that humans are the final line of defense and central to effective security.
- Promotes a human-centric approach through awareness, training, and behavior-shaping initiatives.
- Uses phishing simulations, access hygiene practices, and continuous reinforcement to improve behaviors.
- Encourages a feedback-driven culture of continuous improvement and user engagement.
3. Security Governance
- Establishes governance through policies, frameworks, ISMS, and the 3 Lines of Defense model.
- Defines risk management approaches, including qualitative/quantitative methods, tolerance, and appetite.
- Integrates compliance, audit, and control mechanisms to align security and business risk.
- Addresses fraud prevention, governance councils, and harmonization between compliance and security.
4. Security Advisory
- Advises on security trends, frameworks, and standards, supporting strategic and operational decisions.
- Applies a layered defense model and reviews risks across technology domains.
- Offers guidance on integrating emerging technologies and securing IT/OT environments.
5. Security Operations
- Aligns security operations with business goals through a service-based SOC model.
- Plans and executes incident and crisis management using structured detection and response frameworks.
- Defines SOC team roles and leverages platforms like SIEM, SOAR, and threat intelligence tools.
6. Security Reporting
- Delivers tiered reporting for operational, management, and board-level audiences.
- Ensures regulatory, legal, and external stakeholder reporting meets compliance obligations.
- Uses KPIs, KRIs, dashboards, and threat intelligence to communicate performance and risk posture.
- Follows best practices for effective, actionable, and transparent security reporting.
Additionally, this servcie draws on AIBOK, CWBOK, and Eristotle competency frameworks for breadth and depth to ensure consistency, credibility, and transferability across engagements.
Key Objectives
- Accelerate and Standardize Incident Response
- Automate repeatable, high-volume SOC tasks to reduce manual effort
- Standardize response across incidents, analysts, shifts, and regions
- Improve consistency, auditability, and quality of incident handling
- Translate Operational Demands into SOAR Capability
- Capture incident types, processes, and business priorities into an automation blueprint
- Align playbooks with recognized frameworks such as NIST and MITRE ATT&CK
- Ensure SOAR design reflects real-world SOC operating models
- Design a Scalable and Integrated SOAR Architecture
- Define platform architecture, integrations, and operational configuration
- Enable seamless orchestration across SIEM, EDR, threat intel, ticketing, and collaboration tools
- Build a foundation ready to scale with new use cases, data sources, and business needs
- Develop and Deploy High-Value Playbooks
- Design, build, test, and deploy prioritized playbooks aligned with business risk
- Cover security, operational, and corporate incident scenarios
- Embed role-based access, approval workflows, and governance into every playbook
- Enable Measurable SOC Performance Improvement
- Reduce mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR)
- Improve visibility, reporting, and metrics for SOC effectiveness
- Free up analyst capacity to focus on complex, high-value investigations
Business Outcomes & Benefits
- Automated Processes and Procedures
- Accelerates response times and standardizes SOC management
- Reduces manual overhead and the risk of human error
- Improves reliability and repeatability across shifts, teams, and regions
- Reduced Complexity
- Simplifies integration of diverse security tools and technologies
- Creates a unified, more efficient operating model across the security stack
- Reduces reliance on tribal knowledge and manual coordination
- Streamlined Reporting and Metrics
- Automates reporting and metrics collection aligned to business needs
- Improves visibility and communication with executives, boards, and stakeholders
- Supports regulatory, audit, and assurance reporting requirements
- Improved Orchestration and Proactive Posture
- Enables a proactive rather than reactive security posture
- Helps stop threats before they cause significant harm
- Strengthens containment, recovery, and resilience capabilities
- Faster, More Consistent Incident Handling
- Reduced MTTD and MTTR across critical incident types
- Greater consistency in triage, investigation, and response
- Stronger evidence trails and compliance with incident response frameworks
- Analyst Productivity and Retention
- Frees analysts from repetitive, low-value tasks
- Enables focus on complex, high-value investigations and threat hunting
- Improves job satisfaction and supports retention of scarce talent
- Clear Link Between Automation Investment and Business Value
- Measurable improvements in SOC performance and risk reduction
- Transparent mapping of SOAR capability to business and regulatory outcomes
- Stronger investment case for continued SOC modernization
Key Features
- OODA-Aligned SOAR Methodology
- Observe–Orient–Decide–Act model embedded into every engagement
- Structured approach to move from alerts to actions with speed and precision
- Clear mapping of SOAR capability to SOC operating model
- SOAR Review & Assessment
- Evaluation of existing SOAR or automation capabilities
- Identification of improvement areas across policies, processes, and technology
- Gap analysis and prioritized improvement recommendations
- Customizable SOAR Design
- Solution adapted to your environment, priorities, and maturity
- Flexible engagement across any of the five modular building blocks
- Support for both greenfield deployments and mature platform optimization
- Expert Playbook and Runbook Development
- Targeted playbooks for priority incident types and operational scenarios
- Orchestrations, automations, and workflows tailored to your processes
- Functional testing, iteration, and documentation built into delivery
- End-to-End Platform Architecture and Deployment
- High-level and low-level design covering integrations, RBAC, and data management
- Planning for backups, maintenance, upgrades, and capacity
- Dashboards, widgets, and reporting tailored to stakeholder needs
- Integration with Broader Security Stack
- SIEM, EDR, NDR, threat intelligence, ticketing, and collaboration tooling
- Alignment with SOC workflows, escalation paths, and governance
- Support for cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments
- Frameworks-Aligned Delivery
- Alignment with NIST CSF, MITRE ATT&CK, and ISO 27001
- Grounded in ISOBOK™ and Eristotle competency frameworks
- Consistent, credible, and transferable approach across engagements
Deliverables
Depending on scope, clients may receive one or more of the following deliverables across the five building blocks:
- SOAR Playbook Assessment
- Playbook Blueprint Report with recommendations
- Automation blueprint and high-level process diagrams
- Stakeholder-mapped scenarios and data flow analysis
- SOAR Playbook Development
- Detailed Playbook Design Report including layouts, workflows, tasks, phases, and decision points
- User, Group, and Role Configuration with role-based permissions and access controls
- Final Playbook Artifacts, extracted playbooks (e.g., YAML file for XSOAR) ready for deployment
- Test Documentation, functional test cases, results, and sign-off
- SOAR Playbook Deployment
- Deployed Playbook(s) integrated with relevant incident types and use cases
- Acceptance Test Documentation, final acceptance testing results and confirmation of expected functionality
- Operational Handover Pack for analysts and SOC leadership
- SOAR Architecture
- High-Level Design (HLD) Documentation
- Low-Level Design (LLD) Documentation
- Integrations, custom classification rules, and pre-processing rules
- RBAC roles, recurring jobs, and data retention policies
- Backup, maintenance, upgrade, and capacity plans
- Dashboards and custom widget designs
- SOAR Deployment
- Fully Deployed SOAR Solution (excluding playbooks, if purchased separately)
- Deviation Report capturing any changes made during deployment
- Updated LLD reflecting the final as-built configuration
- Operational Runbooks for ongoing administration and maintenance
- Supporting Deliverables
- Configured SOAR Platform ready for operational use
- SOAR Playbooks for handling specific incident types or broader security processes
- Executive Summary & Briefing Pack for board and leadership engagement
How We Deliver
Our delivery approach is workshop-based, outcome-focused, and centered around a deep understanding of each client’s unique environment, requirements, and operational demands. We combine technical expertise with structured methodology to ensure the SOAR solution is realistic, maintainable, and aligned with SOC best practice.
- Discovery & Scoping
- Stakeholder engagement with SOC, engineering, risk, and business leaders
- Confirmation of scope, module selection, objectives, and success criteria
- Review of current SOAR or automation capabilities and documentation
- Workshops & Stakeholder Interviews
- Sessions with SOC managers, analysts, incident investigators, and supporting teams
- Process walkthroughs for priority incident types and operational scenarios
- Review of existing documentation, wikis, and knowledge bases
- Assessment & Blueprint Development
- Modeling of real-world scenarios including security and corporate incidents
- Analysis of data and platform configurations required to support automation
- Production of the automation blueprint and playbook recommendations
- Design & Development
- Creation of detailed design documentation for workflows, tasks, and phases
- Configuration of users, groups, RBAC, integrations, and system components
- Functional testing and iterative refinement with SOC teams
- Deployment & Acceptance Testing
- Installation and configuration of playbooks and platform in production
- Integration validation with connected security tools
- Acceptance testing to confirm expected functionality and outcomes
- Architecture & Platform Enablement
- Delivery of HLD/LLD and configuration of integrations, RBAC, and retention
- Setup of dashboards, widgets, and reporting aligned to stakeholder needs
- Backup, maintenance, upgrade, and capacity planning
- Handover & Enablement
- Transfer of documentation, configurations, and playbooks to internal owners
- Knowledge transfer sessions for engineers, analysts, and administrators
- Optional ongoing advisory support through related Eristotle services
Through these structured service blocks and the OODA-driven methodology, Eristotle equips organizations with streamlined security automation, more consistent incident handling, and measurable improvements in SOC effectiveness, ultimately elevating enterprise resilience against evolving cyber threats.rhead, and a stronger overall security posture.
Ready to Turn Your SOC Into a High-Performance, Automation-Led Operation?
Partner with Eristotle to design, build, or optimize a SOAR capability that reduces manual effort, accelerates response, and delivers measurable improvements in SOC effectiveness, built around your environment, incidents, and priorities. Book a free 30-minute discovery call with an Eristotle advisor. No commitment required.