Security Automation’s Next (and Best) Evolution Is No-Code and Here’s Why

The biggest challenge I saw in my 15 years as a security practitioner and overseeing security teams was analysts' time consumed by mundane, repetitive tasks that were taking them away from doing the work their skills suited them for, leading to burnout and human error. That's why automation has the potential to help reduce the load of overworked teams by automating low-value tasks and freeing up those analysts for more high-impact work, like improving an organization's security posture.

However, that potential hasn’t been realized with traditional approaches to automation — but it is with no-code automation, which brings increased value, productivity, and efficiency security managers teams are looking for.

If automation exists already, why the need for no-code automation? Is it truly the future of security, or simply a buzzword?

To truly understand why no-code is the future of security automation, we first need to know how automation has evolved, what problems it solves, and where traditional automation is lacking.

The Evolution of Security Automation 

Most days, I felt my team was spending around 80% of their time completing tasks they had already done that day, which is why automation is such a critical function of SecOps.

Automation evolves to fit security team needs better; and as I see it, there have been three phases of security automation that have gotten us to the easily adaptable and accessible no-code automation we have today.

Phase 1: Automation as a Feature

Security automation started as a feature of larger software solutions, like RSA Archer or other legacy security tools that would automate the collection of artifacts and make them available in a single dashboard. However, it allowed for little customization for organization-specific needs, meaning that automation wasn't available across all workflows, but only for what the tool’s features allowed.

Phase 2: Emergence of SOAR Tools

As the requirements of security teams grew in sophistication, so did the number of technologies and solutions needed. Yet with increased tools came an increase in alerts, which quickly overwhelmed the SecOps team.

A recent report on the “Voice of the SOC Analyst” found that 60% of analysts say they have more work than ever these days, and the number one most frustrating aspect of the job is “spending time on manual work” like tracking down alerts.

First-generation SOAR tools addressed these needs; however, building workflows capable of handling the variety of use cases modern security teams need to automate proved impossible and costly for the average frontline security team.

Phase 3: Development of No-Code Automation

What is needed is no-code automation, offered through lightweight and flexible platforms often designed just to focus on workflow.

No-code interfaces remove the barrier of having to know how to write scripts or asking developers to do so by offering simple yet robust actions that an analyst can drag and drop into sequences and wire together.

With just a few building blocks, analysts are able to construct very complex automation streams. Since they’re typically cloud-based, no-code platforms can be deployed in seconds, and analyst ramp-up takes just a few hours. Suddenly, automation is efficient, accessible, affordable, and just makes sense.

Why No-Code Is the Future 

The way to remove barriers to team productivity, as well as increase the security posture of your organization, will be through no-code automation adoption — and here are a few reasons why.

Reduced Action on Alerts

A recent survey from SIRP found that SecOps teams receive an average of 840 alerts per day, and no-code automation platforms allow teams to easily set up automated responses for these alerts.

Not only will the vast majority of alerts no longer need to be manually attended to, but also automation can gather context on its own and deliver richer alerts to analysts. This frees analysts from having to address each alert and chase false positives so that they will have much more time to dedicate to higher-impact activities. But of course, good automation platforms will have a way to pull in a human for the important decisions.

More Security Tools and Less Management

Part of the evolution of security tools, in general, includes organizations moving away from “big box shops” providing their own full stack of tools to sort of a buffet, pick-and-choose approach where different vendors provide a best-of-breed tool designed for specific purposes.

The danger of this approach is fragmentation. However, no-code automation not only works across the tool stack, but it also provides a way to stitch them all together, too.

No-Code Automation Extends to Other Teams

One of the benefits of no-code automation is putting the power of automating workflows in the hands of analysts, regardless of whether they know how to code or not.

With that barrier eliminated, no-code automation can extend to other teams for their automation purposes. The more other teams see no-code automation expertly and efficiently handle security processes, the more confidence they’ll gain that it’s right for their workflows, too.

Removing Barriers to SOC Efficiency

Yes, no-code automation can reduce the workload of your overworked SecOps team by automating low-value tasks that take up much of the day, in order to free them up for more high-impact work. What security leader wouldn’t want an easy and efficient way to increase productivity, minimize human error, and refine an organization's security posture?