5 Skills SecOps Will Need to Effectively Protect Their Organization Going Forward

You hear it again and again: Security teams must be proactive, not simply reactive.

But you were being proactive means evolving your skills and practices. You can't stay on top of threats, create high-functioning teams, and scale your protection with outdated tools and methods of operations. As a leader of your security operations, preparing for the future of the industry means following evolving best practices and nurturing new skills development across team members.

This article covers five of the top skills that SecOps teams need to possess in order to be effective defenders of their organization.

The Top 5 Skills That SecOps Teams Need to Possess in Order to Be Effective Defenders of Their Organization as Followed

Skill 1: Understanding Modern Threats From First Principles

A quick time to respond is, of course, a necessity. But in addition to response time, teams must also proactively understand the threat landscape and anticipate attacks before they occur. An essential skill is understanding modern threats from first principles.

In order to prevent, detect, and eliminate threats, security teams need to create a foundation of intelligence. Build up a base knowledge of how common attacks occur and the root causes of breaches. Seek out intelligence that can help you better understand a malicious actor’s motives and behaviors and anticipate those next moves. Use that knowledge to inform your security processes and help implement quicker automation.

Skill 2: No-Code Automation

Security analysts need to have the ability to automate their workflows in order to free them up from repetitive, mundane tasks. This is why no-code automation will become a valuable skill for security teams wanting to improve their processes and increase engagement amongst their analysts.

By eliminating the barrier of needing to know how to code, teams can get up and running with no-code automation platforms in a matter of hours. On their own time and in their own way, analysts can start building simple workflows and then iterate upon them to handle complex tasks — and according to our “Voice of the SOC Analyst” report, two-thirds of analysts already know that 50% of their tasks could be automated today. An ability to automate processes will become a non-negotiable requirement for security operations and a new skill for analysts.

Skill 3: Understanding of APIs

As organizations unbundle their security stacks and move away from all-in-one “big box shops” to best-of-breed tools, security teams will need to increase their knowledge of APIs in order to get those specific tools to talk to one another. Additionally, as cloud utilization continues to rise —the percentage of companies who have most or all of their IT infrastructure in the cloud will go from 41% today to 63% in the next 18 months — having a deep knowledge of APIs will be critical. And tools that lack good APIs will slowly disappear.

Security teams need to keep their APIs updated and working smoothly, which may require ongoing maintenance. But intelligent and well-maintained APIs will allow for better data collection and the ability to leverage technology like no-code automation. Exploring the public API documentation of common platforms like Gmail, Stripe, and Twilio will help teams develop an ability to understand API documentation, common patterns, and error code. Look to tools like Postman and cURL to help with better APIs as well.

Skill 4: Communicating Business Value Through Writing

Clear, concise writing and communication are going to be another critical skill for security teams, especially to effectively convey business value to leadership. However, in 56% of companies, security teams aren’t sharing formal documentation with their C-suite about their work at all. Also, security leaders are well adept at describing the metrics and technical aspects of keeping the organization safe. But C-suites and boards are looking for explanations to questions like “How secure are we?” or “How much of an impact are the security investments we’re making having on the business?”

Security leaders need to practice being able to communicate these answers clearly, in easy-to-understand language, and with demonstrated cause and effect. Also, practice how to storytell about attacks and breaches and the incident response to them. This kind of communication can not only lend credibility to the security team, but it can also help justify why security is a critical business unit.

Skill 5: Peer Influence

Security teams need to perform much of their remediation work on systems they often don’t own or have direct control over, like AWS, endpoints, and mobile devices. This means depending on other teams for success who often have different priorities.

Another skill is being able to communicate the reasons for needing access, the importance of doing so, and why there’s urgency around it. This will require a bit of trust and relationship building as well. Ultimately, other departments will likely be more willing to allow access in automated scenarios with known inputs and outputs instead of granting open-ended, manual access.

Critical Skills to Scale

Threats are increasing. Malicious actors are growing more sophisticated. Organizations are scaling their cloud at rapid rates. Yet SecOps teams who develop and master the above skills will be well prepared for whatever the future of cybersecurity holds.