Making Smarter Security Decisions with Risk-Based Optimization in Microsoft Sentinel
In today’s fast-paced environment, security teams constantly face the challenge with alerts and potential threats. Deciding which ones to prioritize can be overwhelming, especially when resources are limited and you do not want to end up creating un necessary alert noise which may lead to bigger problems such as alert fatigue. Microsoft Sentinel’s new Risk-Based Optimization feature aims to tackle this challenge by aligning security efforts with the business risks that matter most.
The Challenge
Every organisation is different, in terms of their nature of business,technology stack, unique challenges,and risks. For example,a data breach might be catastrophic for a financial institution but less so for a manufacturing company. There’s often a disconnect between business leaders and security teams. While executives focus on operational continuity and growth, security professionals concentrate on technical vulnerabilities. This misalignment can result in:
- Overlooking protection for vital assets creating ‘Security Blind Spots’
- Wasting resources on low-impact threats
- Challenges in communicating security priorities to business leadrship.
- Investments that don’t yield tangible business benefits
Introducing Risk-Based Optimization
To bridge this gap, Microsoft Sentinel’s Risk-Based Optimization offers a structured approach to prioritize security measures based on business impact. Here’s how it works:
- Identify Critical Assets: Determine high risk areas and underprotected systems.
- Unserstand business risks: Finacnial fraud,data breach, or Availability
- Receive Recommendations: aligned with both MITRE ATT&CK tactics and business consequences.
By following this methodology, organizations can ensure that their security efforts are both effective and aligned with business objectives.
Benefits of Risk-Based Optimization
Implementing this feature can lead to:
- Enhanced Threat Coverage: Focus on threats that pose the most significant risks to your business.
- Efficient Resource Allocation: Direct efforts towards high-impact areas, ensuring optimal use of resources.
- Improved Communication: Facilitate better discussions between IT and business leaders by framing security in business terms.
- Visual Insights: Utilize tools like radar charts and the MITRE ATT&CK framework to visualize threat landscapes and coverage gaps.
Risk based optimization feature,at the time of this writing is in Public Preview and only available in unified Microsoft Security Portal where SOC Optimization now surfaces a set of cards, each highlighting a different business risk where your coverage could be improved.
In the unified Microsoft security portal, SOC Optimization has some new cards, each one showing a different business risk where the coverage could be improved.
Image sourced from Microsoft Tech Community
For example in the following card alerts that your current coverage is low and could be improved
If you click “Learn about risk types” you are presented with a comprehensive view that outlines the nature of the risk, the business areas it affects—such as financial, compliance, and legal—and a comparison of your current MITRE ATT&CK coverage against the recommended baseline.
You also get direct link to the Content hub where you can get the available detection rules and list of data sources that can improve your coverage.
If you already have a data source available, this will help you source analytic rule packages to improve your detections.
As this content get updated