Orchestrating and Automating CyberSecurity Responses with Flowable

Intro

In today's digital age, where technology permeates every aspect of our lives, cybersecurity has emerged as a paramount concern for individuals and organizations alike. As cyber threats continue to evolve in sophistication and frequency, the need for proactive and comprehensive security measures has never been more essential. Among this landscape, the Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) model has garnered attention as a powerful framework for enhancing cybersecurity operations.

In this blog post, we examine how organizations can leverage the Flowable Platform and AI to transform the SOAR model.

Orchestrating Security Solutions

Flowable enables Security Operations Centers (SOCs) to orchestrate multiple, disconnected security solutions to achieve high-level control and visibility into their entire SOAR model. Additionally, by leveraging AI directly from the Flowable Platform, we can automate the categorization and risk assessment of threats. Utilizing CMMN, BPMN, and DMN, Flowable then provides the ability to automate the response plan while tracking data about incidents, responses, and results. Finally, Flowable makes it easy to present all of this in Dashboards that provide visibility into current threats but also gives insights into historical threats and responses.

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR)

SOAR is a software solution that has revolutionized the way in which Security Operations Centers (SOCs) assess and respond to cybersecurity threats. By implementing SOAR capabilities, security personnel can be unburdened from the task of manually reviewing logs and assessing every single alert, freeing them up to focus on higher level, strategically focused tasks instead.

A SOAR solution can be broken down further:

• Incident Response

  • How violations of security policies and breaches are mitigated.

• Security Automation

  • Automating individual tasks that are part of the assessment and response.

• Security Orchestration

  • Connecting all of the security solutions used by a SOC for a complete, end-to-end workflow that is easy to monitor and understand.

  • SOCs use solutions such as firewalls, endpoint protection tools, and threat intelligence feeds. These tools are often supplied by different vendors which makes orchestration a key component of a successful SOAR implementation.

Tying it all together (How can Flowable and AI strengthen a SOAR solution)

Flowable Platform provides industry-leading BPMN, CMMN, and DMN capabilities which can all be used in conjunction to strengthen a SOAR solution.

Simple integration mechanisms allow Flowable to bring AI into the mix to automate the assessment and categorization of threats.

With CMMN, we can address unpredictable, dynamic processes. For example, we can always allow for a human in the loop to redirect a case as the AI learns and improves.

With BPMN, we can easily build and understand task routing and process monitoring.

With DMN, we can leverage rule-based decision-making to determine the next steps based on the AI's response.

Flowable provides robust and easy-to-implement integration solutions allowing us to integrate with a variety of other security solutions used by SOCs.

Example Implementation

A high-level example that can be quickly implemented and easily enhanced:

1. Threat detection software detects a security incident and sends alert data to a messaging broker.

2. Flowable listens for these events and starts a new case.

3. Alert data is parsed and sent with a prompt to a LLM / AI tool.

4. AI responds by categorizing and assessing the severity of the threat.

5. The Flowable platform orchestrates the necessary response(s) which could result in simple tasks or kicking off subprocesses depending upon the need.

6. Flowable tracks data about the incident and response.

7. Flowable provides dashboards that give security personnel a live view of all current incidents.

8. Flowable provides reporting dashboards that give insight into historical data, which allows the team to assess and improve their responses.

Conclusion

As we have explored, the SOAR model is a crucial advancement in the realm of cybersecurity, offering a robust framework that integrates orchestration, automation, and response capabilities to address increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. The Flowable platform provides a fast, easy, and flexible way to implement SOAR and to integrate other useful technologies, such as AI, into an organization’s SOAR solution.

The applicability of this approach extends to several industries—from finance and retail to government, healthcare, and critical infrastructure. By streamlining incident response and optimizing resource allocation, SOAR empowers organizations to not only defend against attacks but also to bolster their overall security posture. As cyber threats continue to advance, embracing the SOAR model will be critical for organizations aiming to protect their digital assets and maintain operational resilience in an interconnected world.