AI

GigaOm Declares Torq the Autonomous SOC Leader, Dramatically Outpacing Legacy Vendors

By Torq
October 29, 2024
5 Minute Read

Contents

GigaOm provides technical, operational, and business advice for IT’s strategic digital enterprise and business initiatives. GigaOm applies proven research and methodologies designed to avoid pitfalls and roadblocks while balancing risk and innovation, empowering enterprises to successfully compete in a changing business atmosphere.

GigaOm recognizes Torq as the only Hyperautomation vendor capable of delivering true autonomy to the SOC without vendor lock-in.

For years, security teams have grappled with relentless alert fatigue and burnout, exacerbated by disjointed security tools like SIEMs and SOARs. Legacy security vendors have tried to address this by cramming disconnected solutions into “all-encompassing” SecOps platforms, and many have now falsely tacked on “autonomous SOC” and “Hyperautomation” claims to their products. 

Security teams can’t afford to invest in another expensive, hard-to-maintain platform that doesn’t deliver on its promise of autonomy and automation — so where should they turn?

GigaOm’s newly-released Autonomous SOC Radar Report confirms: Torq Hyperautomation is the clear frontrunner in realizing the autonomous SOC vision and delivering the autonomy SOC teams have long been promised.

What is an Autonomous Security Operations Center (SOC)?

While legacy vendors now claim to offer SOC autonomy, true autonomy isn’t achieved by locking users into rigid, all-in-one platforms. These legacy solutions contributed to the very burnout problem that led to a talent shortage of 4 million security professionals. Their proposed solution? Dump more cash into the same outdated platforms.

A genuinely autonomous SOC leverages advanced automation and AI to handle manual and routine security tasks, accelerating response times, enhancing threat management, and ultimately safeguarding the well-being of SOC analysts. The most efficient path to this goal involves breaking down silos between security tools, enabling seamless communication and streamlined security operations across a modern, best-of-breed tech stack.

Simply put, it isn’t possible to achieve an autonomous SOC without automation. Torq is the only vendor solely dedicated to empowering security teams to automate more, faster.

“Torq is the only vendor positioned in the Innovation/Feature Play quadrant, as it is the only non-SIEM solution featured in the report, which also explains its differentiated position.“

– Andrew Green, Research Analyst for Networking & Security, GigaOm

Torq is the Only Hyperautomation Vendor Listed in GigaOm’s Autonomous SOC Report

Hyperautomation is the next evolution in scalable autonomous security operations. By definition, Hyperautomation requires enterprise-grade scalability, availability, and connectivity — essentially solving the challenges caused by these large legacy vendors. While the idea of the autonomous SOC is centered around the ability to automate everything, similarly, Hyperautomation is built on a foundational ability to integrate with anything. 

Torq’s recognition as the only Hyperautomation vendor in GigaOm’s Autonomous SOC Radar report underscores that unique position in the security operations landscape. 

Frameworks coming into law, such as DORA in the EU and CCSPA in Canada, spotlight the need for vendor diversity to reduce single points of failure and enable redundancy. Torq is the only autonomous SOC vendor enabling organizations to seamlessly integrate best-of-breed solutions — free from vendor lock-in.

Torq combines this vendor-agnostic approach with advanced technologies like purpose-built AI and Hyperautomation, engineered to create intelligent end-to-end solutions for security processes.

And GigaOm isn’t alone in recognizing Torq as the leader of autonomous SOC — industry analysts across the board are taking note.

“Torq is the first solution we’ve seen that effectively enables SOC professionals to mitigate issues including alert fatigue, false positives, staff burnout, and attrition. We’re impressed by how its AI augmentation capabilities empower these staff members to be much more proactive about fortifying the security perimeter.”

– Chris Kissel, Vice President, Security & Trust Products, IDC Research

By choosing Torq, organizations are embracing the future of security operations, as recognized by industry experts — with an approach that’s creating a more agile, effective, and strategic security operation.

Leveraging AI to Drive SOC Autonomy 

Torq integrates purpose-built AI capabilities such as generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to evolve SOC operations fundamentally and deliver on the promise of an autonomous SOC. This enables security teams to focus their efforts on proactive security measures, resulting in greater efficiency and accuracy in decision-making processes.

“80% of our security alerts are assisted and accelerated by Torq workflows. To analyze, enrich, and also autonomously respond to alerts is a paradigm shift that brings unprecedented efficiencies.″

– Joshua Blackwater, Deputy CISO, SentinelOne

Socrates, Torq’s AI SOC Analyst, exemplifies this by automating 90% of Tier-1 tasks through AI-powered triage and investigation. Socrates accelerates analyst response times by summarizing case data and providing immediate insights. It also automates 95% of security cases from investigation to response, intelligently assigning critical cases to human analysts when necessary. This augmentation empowers analysts at all levels to achieve machine-speed response times while supporting ongoing learning and skills development. 

The Sole Winner: Torq’s Unique Position

GigaOm’s report highlights the critical importance of AI-powered autonomous SOCs. As the sole Hyperautomation solution free from platform constraints, Torq provides the agility and innovation necessary for modernizing security operations in an increasingly demanding environment. 

For organizations seeking to enhance their SOC capabilities without sacrificing flexibility or risking vendor lock-in, Torq offers the only comprehensive solution designed to meet these challenges head-on. Schedule a demo to see it in action.

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AI Use Cases

AI in SOC Operations: 3 Use Cases That Show How Socrates Supercharges Analysts

By Brian Higgins
October 23, 2024
3 Minute Read

Contents

How AI in SOC operations frees your analysts from repetitive tasks 

Despite the rapid evolution of security technologies, many SOCs are still weighed down by manual processes and outdated tools. Analysts are burdened with repetitive tasks, inefficient workflows, and disjointed incident response mechanisms. This broken system is leaving SOCs reacting to incidents instead of preventing them.

There’s a better way forward. With Torq’s AI SOC Analyst, Socrates, security teams are redefining how they operate — moving from reactive to proactive and supporting efficiency at every level. Unlike traditional GenAI assistants, Socrates uses a Multi-Agent System (MAS) to plan, execute, and learn across every stage of incident response. Socrates enables security teams to automate mundane, repetitive tasks and take contextual action faster, moving towards an autonomous SOC and freeing analysts to focus on higher-order work. 

Let’s explore how Socrates revolutionizes security operations by addressing three key use cases for AI in the SOC. 

1. Intelligently Prioritized Cases

The average SOC is inundated with alerts, making it challenging to identify and prioritize critical cases. Manual case assignments consume valuable time and often result in misassignments that delay threat response. 

With Socrates acting as the SOC’s AI OmniAgent, manual case assignment bottlenecks become a thing of the past. Socrates automatically triages incoming alerts, determines their priority level, and assigns them to the appropriate team or individual in real time. 

This enables analysts to immediately focus on resolving high-priority cases without having to sift through data or determine who should handle what. The result is improved incident response speed and accuracy, reducing time-to-remediation, and easing the burden on your SOC team.

2. Smarter  Human-in-the-Loop Remediation

Despite advancements in automated workflows, there are times when human input is essential for nuanced decision-making. Many SOCs struggle to effectively balance automation with human expertise. Legacy models often fail to integrate humans seamlessly into the process, leading to efficiency gaps. 

Socrates streamlines human-in-the-loop workflows by notifying analysts when their input is needed. Analysts can quickly step in to guide the remediation process — whether it’s approving a firewall block, escalating an alert, or providing context for an investigation. 

This real-time collaboration between AI agents  and human expertise is designed to eliminate burnout without sacrificing control. 

3. Automated Case Documentation and Admin Work

SOC analysts often dread documentation as it takes time away from real security work. Case notes, incident logs, and reports are necessary for compliance and auditing — but they can be a time drain. 

Socrates alleviates the burden by automatically documenting cases as they evolve. Using natural language processing and contextual awareness, Socrates automatically logs actions, summaries, and case updates from start to finish. This reduces the need for manual input, prevents human error, and ensures consistent documentation across the board. By handling admin work in the background, agentic AI in the SOC frees analysts to focus more on proactive security efforts.

Why AI Agents Are the Future of AI in SOC  Workflows

The pain of relying on legacy SOAR tools and manual processes is over. By integrating Hyperautomation with AI through Socrates, SOC teams unlock new levels of efficiency, accuracy, and strategic value. Socrates modernizes your SOC, from automatic case assignment and streamlined human-in-the-loop workflows to hands-free documentation.

Experience the power of Socrates — the AI SOC Analyst that keeps pace with today’s most intense challenges. 

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AI Hyperautomation Insights

How to End SOC Alert Fatigue (Before It Ends Your Team)

By Torq
October 10, 2024
6 Minute Read
AI solves SOC alert fatigue and SOC analyst burnout in security operations

Contents

Every day, analysts are buried under a mountain of low-value and often meaningless alerts. And they’re expected to triage, investigate, prioritize, and respond to all of them — faster, better, and with fewer people. With this comes alert fatigue, which can lead to missed threats, slower response times, and SOC analyst burnout.

The good news is that SOC analysts don’t have to live like this anymore. Not if you have the right kind of AI working for you. This blog explores what alert fatigue is, the causes, and how agentic AI can kill your SOC alert fatigue.

What Is SOC Alert Fatigue?

Alert fatigue occurs when security analysts are inundated with more alerts than they can handle, many of them false positives. More than half of security teams say false positives are a huge problem, and 62.5% are overwhelmed by sheer data volume. 

Without effective triage or prioritization, it becomes harder to distinguish real threats from background noise. This leads to slower detection and response, missed incidents, and higher stress on already-stretched SOC teams, which in turn increases risk to the business.

What’s Fueling SOC Alert Fatigue? 

Alert fatigue is the result of too many notifications with too little value. And it’s a problem that only gets worse as security environments become more complex. Here’s what’s driving it:

  • False positives: When your tools cry wolf 24/7, your team stops listening. Eventually, real threats slip through while your analysts are focusing on other tasks.
  • Lack of context: SOC alerts that show up without background info or severity indicators force analysts to spend time investigating the wrong things.
  • Lack of integration: Most enterprise environments are filled with tools that don’t work well together. Without correlation and consolidation, alert volume skyrockets.
  • Poorly defined management processes: Vague incident response plans — or worse, none at all — mean alerts hang around with no apparent owner or action path. 
  • Too few hands on deck: SOC teams are often understaffed and overworked. The more alerts pile up, the harder it is to keep pace.
  • Limited customization: If you can’t filter or customize your alerts, even basic issues start to add unnecessary noise.

The Number One Cause of Alert Fatigue: Legacy SOAR

Legacy SOAR is the #1 driver of SOC alert fatigue. It’s a rigid, SIEM-dependent model that treats every alert like a five-alarm fire. It floods analysts with noise, drowns them in contextless data, and racks up costs with every added integration. And because most legacy SOAR platforms are stuck on-prem, they can’t scale or flex with today’s modern security environments.

Here’s what you get with legacy SOAR:

  • Difficulty finding helpful information and managing vulnerabilities
  • Slower time to identify and respond to actual threats
  • Higher rates of SOC analyst burnout, which drives attrition
  • Too many tools, not enough context

The Cost of Alert Fatigue

Cybersecurity alert fatigue doesn’t just slow your team down — it puts your security posture and business at risk. Here’s what happens when your SOC is buried in noise:

  • False sense of security: When analysts are bombarded with alerts, real threats start blending in with the false positives. Eventually, they stop paying attention, and that’s when things slip through the cracks.
  • Slower response times: Tired teams don’t move fast. Critical SOC alerts sit untouched, and threats have time to escalate.
  • Wasted resources: Teams overwhelmed by junk alerts often require more headcount. That’s expensive and inefficient.
  • Burnout and turnover: Drowning in noise leads to stress, frustration, and SOC burnout. More than 70% of SOC analysts report experiencing burnout, and more than half have considered leaving the field. With them goes the knowledge and expertise that takes years to develop. 
  • Reputation damage: When a preventable breach hits the headlines, the fallout can be massive.
  • Legal and compliance issues: Missed threats can turn into breaches. Breaches mean SEC reporting, fines, investigations, and answering a whole lot of questions.

The average cost of a data breach was $4.9M in 2024, a 10% increase year over year. On the flip side, organizations that fully embraced security AI and automation saved an average of $2.2M compared to those that didn’t, according to IBM.

How Torq HyperSOC Uses Agentic AI to Fix Fatigue

Legacy SOAR can’t scale. Torq HyperSOC™ can.

Built on an event-driven architecture and powered by agentic AI, Torq HyperSOC processes and prioritizes alerts at machine scale, handling volumes that legacy SOAR can’t even come close to. It dynamically filters, enriches, correlates, and aggregates alerts in real time, ensuring analysts see what actually matters.

Unlike SOAR, which forces teams to hand-map fields and manually manage triggers, Torq automates everything, from data parsing to trigger conditions to workflow execution. And because Torq also offers horizontal scalability, it can support a vast number of processes without slowing down or racking up costs.

With agentic AI, we’ve replaced repetition with relevance. Our multi-agent system takes on the tasks that drain analysts most — triage, enrichment, correlation, case summaries, even full remediation… and executes them autonomously. That means fewer panicked 2am Slacks and “Why am I still doing this manually?” moments.

“Torq HyperSOC is the first solution we’ve seen that effectively enables SOC professionals to mitigate issues including alert fatigue, false positives, staff burnout, and attrition.”

IDC: Achieving Machine Speed Detection and Response

An autonomous SOC powered by agentic AI eliminates SOC alert fatigue. With 95% of Tier-1 tasks hyperautomated, analysts aren’t stuck chasing false positives or drowning in duplicate alerts. SOC teams can focus on high-value incidents, with full context and enriched data at their fingertips.

Even Gartner backs it up: By 2026, AI will increase SOC efficiency by 40%. With Torq, that future isn’t years away; it’s already here.

Legacy SOAR vs. Torq HyperSOC™: Solving Alert Fatigue

Here’s how Torq HyperSOC™ stacks up compared to legacy SOAR systems when it comes to fixing alert fatigue. 

Legacy SOARTorq HyperSOC
SOC alerts are treated like a five-alarm fire, with no intelligent prioritizationAgentic AI triages and prioritizes alerts with semantic, episodic, and procedural memory
Inflexible, SIEM-dependent pipelines for noise reduction and enrichmentHyperautomation eliminates SIEM dependency and enriches data on the fly
Manual alert triage leads to SOC burnout and delaysAI-driven triage, investigation, and remediation reduce analyst burden
Rigid, on-prem architecture limits scalability and flexibilityCloud-native architecture scales effortlessly with your environment
Siloed tools and alerts, lacking unified contextMulti-agent system correlates alerts into unified incidents with full context
Slower response times due to disconnected systems and workflowsEnd-to-end automation delivers sub-minute response times
High analyst turnover from alert overload and frustrationAI offloads repetitive work, reducing burnout and improving retention

By taking over the repetitive, time-consuming tasks that drive SOC burnout, agentic AI lets analysts do the work that actually matters. You know, the reason they got into security in the first place. 

Ready to kill SOC alert fatigue? Learn how to migrate from legacy SOAR to Torq.

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AI Insights

Building Trust in AI: Structured, Evidence-Backed Summaries for Seamless SOC Shift Transfers

By Gal Peretz
October 4, 2024
6 Minute Read
A key area for building trust in AI in the SOC? Ensuring that AI-generated summaries have the right structure and evidence to ensure seamless SOC shift transfers.

Contents

Gal Peretz, Head of AI & Data at Torq

Gal Peretz is the former Head of AI & Data at Torq. Gal accelerates Torq’s AI & Data initiatives, applying his vast expertise in deep learning and natural language processing to advance AI-powered security automation. He also co-hosts the LangTalks podcast, where he discusses the latest in AI and LLM technologies. 

Staying ahead of evolving cyber threats means more than just keeping up — it means outsmarting the adversary with intelligent, proactive solutions that supercharge your team. This blog kicks off our latest series focused on building trust in AI in Security Operations Centers (SOCs).

As we navigate this new era of AI, Torq recognizes that integrating intelligent systems into existing security workflows is both new and essential. And it can’t be just deploying advanced technology, it’s about building solutions that seamlessly collaborate with your team and earn their trust. Our mission is to create AI systems that enhance efficiency while embedding naturally into daily operations like SOC shift handoffs, ensuring that technology and human expertise work hand in hand.

The Challenge of Relying on Naive Summarizations in SOC Shift Handovers

Consider a scenario where an outgoing SOC team provides an AI-generated summary during a shift handover. The summary reads:

“A phishing alert was reported by an employee regarding an email from [email protected] with the subject ‘Your package is ready, needs to be released from customs.’ The email passed DMARC and SPF checks but contained several red flags indicating a phishing attempt.” [figure 1]

At first glance, this summary appears concise and informative, but the trained eye will notice it lacks more critical structure and detail. It doesn’t specify what exactly happened beyond a general phishing alert, when the events took place, or how the conclusion of a phishing attempt was reached. Moreover, it fails to cite any original evidence or analyses that support its findings. 

This absence of structured information and verifiable evidence leaves the incoming team with unanswered questions like: 

  • Which systems were affected?
  • What specific red flags were identified? 
  • Were there malicious attachments or links that need immediate attention?

Without this crucial information, the incoming team may misinterpret the severity of the threat or overlook essential steps needed for mitigation. The lack of evidence-backed details also opens the door for AI hallucinations — incorrect or fabricated information generated by AI — which can mislead the team into focusing on the wrong areas. 

Instead of facilitating a smooth transition, the unstructured and unsupported summary creates confusion, delays response times, and potentially allows the threat to persist or escalate.

Example of how a naive AI-generated case summary doesn't have enough information for reliable SOC shift transfers
Figure 1: Naive Case Summary Doesn’t Cut It for Reliable SOC Shift Transfers

The Torq Standard: Structured, Evidence-Backed Summaries

Now, imagine the same scenario we just discussed, this time the outgoing SOC team provides an AI-generated, structured, and evidence-backed summary. The summary is organized into clear sections — What happened, When it happened, and How it happened — each supported by direct citations to original forensic evidence.

“What happened: A phishing alert was reported by an employee regarding an email purportedly from [email protected] with the subject “Your package is ready, needs to be released from customs” [1]. The email contained malicious attachments (invoice.doc and QRCode.png) and included a suspicious link (hXXps://wood82c2[.]jayden1077[.]workers[.]io/c64ed9ed-b68b-4f61-b26e-20d32f0f13ab) [1]. The ‘Reply-To’ address differed from the ‘From’ address, indicating a potential phishing attempt [2].

When it happened: The phishing email was reported on August 5, 2024 [1]. Subsequent analyses and confirmations occurred between August 24 and September 2, 2024 [3][4][5][6].

How it happened: The email passed DMARC and SPF checks, but the discrepancy in the ‘Reply-To’ field raised suspicion [2]. Email body analysis flagged several phishing indicators: a non-legitimate link, a demand for information via a link, a false sense of urgency, and a lack of sender details [3][4]. Sandbox analysis of the attachments confirmed them as malicious, detecting unauthorized network activity and potential application crashes [5][6].” [Figure 2]

Citations:

  1. Phishing Alert Email received by an employee, dated August 5, 2024.
  2. Email Header Analysis Report, conducted on August 24, 2024.
  3. Email Body Content Analysis Summary, dated August 25, 2024.
  4. Suspicious Email Indicators Checklist, referenced on August 26, 2024.
  5. Attachment Scan Results from Antivirus Software, dated August 30, 2024.
  6. Sandbox Analysis Report of Email Attachments, completed on September 2, 2024.

With this structured summary and direct citations, the incoming team can quickly grasp the situation’s full context. They have immediate access to the supporting evidence, allowing them to validate the AI’s conclusions and understand the threat’s specifics without delay. This reduces the risk of misinterpretation and ensures that critical details aren’t overlooked.

The inclusion of citations linking back to original forensic evidence not only mitigates the risk of AI hallucinations but also builds trust in AI-generated insights. Team members can verify each point, ensuring that their actions are based on accurate and reliable information. This structured, evidence-based approach transforms the shift handover into a seamless transition, empowering the incoming team to act swiftly and effectively against the cybersecurity threat.

By adopting this method, Torq has developed AI-based security automation solutions that reflect the analytical thought processes of SOC professionals. The structured summaries not only enhance clarity but also empower team members to validate AI findings, thereby building trust in AI and facilitating more effective collaboration between humans and AI systems.

Example of how a a structured, evidence-based AI-generated case summary can help with building trust in AI in your SOC operations
Figure 2: Structured Summary with Forensic Evidence-Based Citations

Strengthening Your SOC with Trustworthy AI

Innovation and trust go hand in hand, especially in the critical field of cybersecurity. The challenges we’ve discussed highlight the necessity for AI solutions that do more than automate — they need to enhance trust, collaboration, and efficiency within your team. 

This is where Torq’s AI capabilities become your trusted partner in navigating the complexities of security operations. By providing structured, evidence-backed summaries, AI Case Summaries ensure that every piece of information is transparent and verifiable. It empowers your SOC by enabling team members to work faster, make informed decisions with confidence, and seamlessly transition between shifts. By reducing uncertainty and mitigating the risks of AI errors, it streamlines operations and strengthens your entire security posture. 

Together, we’re fostering a collaborative environment where AI and human expertise unite to safeguard your organization more effectively than ever before.

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Insights MSSP

4 MSSP Trends: Differentiate Your Business with CTEM, AI SOC, and More

By Torq
October 1, 2024
7 Minute Read
Explore 4 key MSSP trends to help differentiate your business — from continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) to AI-powered SOCs.

Contents

MSSPs have huge potential for growth as more and more companies turn to experts to outsource their cybersecurity. Tailwinds such as escalating cyber threats, the need to protect more customer data than ever before, and growing compliance requirements are driving the managed security services market’s growth at a compound annual growth rate of 15.4% from 2023 to 2030. 

But competition is fierce in a market crowded with thousands of MSSPs — and the landscape is constantly evolving in response to seismic shifts like the rise of AI. 

How do you stand out from the MSSP crowd while adapting to major changes? Below we break down four key trends forward-thinking MSSPs are capitalizing on to differentiate their business and win.

MSSP Trend #1: Budgets are Shifting to More Proactive Security Solutions

In 2024, over 70% of businesses increased spending on proactive security solutions, outstripping spending in preventative and reactive measures.[1] It’s pretty easy to see why: a proactive approach helps organizations get ahead of threats before vulnerabilities can be exploited — rather than constantly dealing with the fallout from attacks that have already happened.  

Proactively identifying and remediating exposures can lower the overall security workload over time while decreasing the likelihood of downtime, data breaches, lost productivity, and lost revenue from attacks. To win business amidst this spending shift, MSSPs need to evolve their approach, services, and messaging towards a proactive stance.

Why this is great for MSSPs: Not only are clients increasingly looking for proactive security solutions, adopting a proactive posture also makes a better business case for MSSPs. 

It’s difficult to attach clear ROI to a reactive, defensive stance because lack of failure is hard to quantify. Flipping the script to an offense-oriented, proactive posture enables  more tangible measurement of harm mitigation and risk reduction. This helps MSSPs make a stronger business case to clients, and in turn, helps their clients demonstrate effective results to their own leadership when justifying budget allocation for security investments. 

MSSP Trend #2: CTEM Brings Opportunity to MSSPs Through Prioritized Threat Remediation

A proactive approach to security must be implemented programmatically in order to succeed. Gartner, Inc. introduced the concept of Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) as a new methodology for security teams to reduce future exposure amidst a dynamically shifting threat landscape. 

Not every vulnerability is created equal — a key component of CTEM is to prioritize vulnerabilities based on urgency, exploitability, and potential impact on the business.

According to Gartner, Inc., by 2026, organizations that prioritize their security investments based on a continuous exposure management program will be 3x less likely to suffer a breach.

Why this helps MSSPs differentiate: A prioritized approach to threat remediation recommendations enables clients to focus their resources where they will have the most impact: critical vulnerabilities. This efficiently maximizes risk reduction — and helps MSSPs redefine their role as strategic partners, rather than just service providers.

Strategic recommendations also help MSSPs improve collaboration with clients’ internal teams when remediation actions are needed. Rather than lobbing an unmanageable barrage of issues that need fixing over the fence to a client’s overwhelmed IT teams, providing high-priority recommendations alongside justification for why the remediation matters to the business will enable client teams to more effectively address their most urgent vulnerabilities.

MSSP Trend #3: SOAR is Out — and Hyperautomation is Maximizing MSSP Margins

A proactive, programmatic security strategy requires a robust tech stack that streamlines processes and empowers human experts. For MSSPs, Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) was supposed to be the silver bullet to help them automate operations at scale. However, SOAR’s monolithic architecture and reliance on proprietary connectors failed to deliver even the most basic functionality required to effectively automate security operations — and it’s left MSSPs locked-in to a rigid vendor stack, unable to scale, and bleeding margins.

Enter Hyperautomation. Cloud-native, built for multi-tenancy, and with limitless security integrations and automations, the Torq Hyperautomation platform is changing the game for MSSPs. Hyperautomation:

  • Offloads repetitive tasks by instantly automating any security process using thousands of pre-built integration steps and AI-generated workflows.
  • Frees up MSSP teams to focus on high-value work by proactively identifying threats, prioritizing investigations, and only elevating cases to the appropriate analyst when human-in-the-loop intervention is needed.
  • Onboards new clients in minutes and reduces onboarding costs by securely sharing workflows across environments.
  • Seamlessly integrates with every tool in your clients’ existing security stack.

Why this matters to MSSPs: The supercharged efficiency gains from Hyperautomation means your MSSP can do more, faster — without increasing headcount. This translates to reduce customer acquisition costs, boosted margins, faster-time-to-value, and improved SLAs. Sounds like a win-win-win-win.

The latest MSSP trend? Ditching SOAR for Hyperautomation. Get the Managed Services Manifesto to learn why SOAR is dead.

MSSP Trend #4: AI-Powered SOCs are Rapidly Becoming the Future of Security Operations

MSSP SOCs are under siege from a tsunami of threats growing in severity and complexity, exacerbated by an ongoing talent shortage. Security analysts can only address half of the alerts they’re assigned each day, and nearly half say average detection and response time has increased within the past two years,[2] impacting MSSPs’ ability to meet SLAs. This can lead to penalties, customer churn, and reputational damage. 

AI has radically changed the security world — and it’s key to helping MSSP SOCs beat burnout and stay ahead of evolving threats. Leveraging AI in security operations is not about replacing analyst jobs, but rather augmenting and upleveling existing staff so they can make informed decisions faster without being bogged down by low-level alerts. 

With Torq, MSSPs harness the power of AI through:

  • Socrates, the AI SOC Analyst: Socrates can autonomously execute SOC-defined runbooks written in natural language, auto-remediating 95% of cases within minutes. For critical cases, your human analysts can collaborate with Socrates using natural language to summarize case details, request additional information, and trigger complex remediation workflows — upleveling the capabilities of your team and speeding up response times across the board.
  • AI Workflow Builder: Create custom security automation in seconds by describing your needs in simple, natural language, then previewing and customizing the results — no code required. 
  • AI Case Summaries: Rather than manually slogging through pages of logs and incident details, Torq automatically presents your team with a concise, insightful summary of each case, surfacing critical insights and recommendations so your team can make the right decisions quickly.

Why this helps MSSPs: By automating workflows, speeding up processes, enriching and summarizing cases, and augmenting human expertise, Torq helps MSSP SOC teams achieve machine speed response and start building an autonomous SOC. This results in a faster MTTR to better serve customers — improving their satisfaction and retention. 

Not only that, an AI-powered SOC helps eliminate alert fatigue and analyst burnout so your team has the bandwidth to focus on the bigger picture: strategically securing your clients’ organizations. 

“We are impressed by how [Torq’s] AI augmentation capabilities empower [SOC] staff members to be much more proactive about fortifying the security perimeter.”

IDC HyperSOC™ Spotlight Report

Unlock Growth and Differentiation: The Power of Proactive, AI-Enhanced Security

Proactiveness, prioritization, Hyperautomation, and AI are the future of security operations — and the keys to MSSP evolution and success. Adopting these now will help you stand out, better serve customers, hold on to your best talent, and boost your margins. 

Explore how Torq is helping MSSPs get ahead of the curve and win.

Sources:

  1. Security Magazine, More than 70% of companies increased spending on proactive security, June 2024
  2. Morning Consult and IBM, Global Security Operations Center Study Results, March 2023

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Hyperautomation

8 Benefits of Using Hyperautomation

By Dallas Young
September 30, 2024
4 Minute Read
Hyperautomation benefits in cybersecurity

Contents

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) was never built for hybrid cloud adoption at enterprise scale. Legacy SOAR’s complexity, critical operational holes, and technical limitations make it the fatal flaw sinking your organization’s ship. Hyperautomation addresses these challenges with scalable, AI-driven orchestration that enhances security posture while reducing operational overhead.

If your SOC is still relying on legacy SOAR, here are eight Hyperautomation benefits that show why it’s time to switch — today.

What is Hyperautomation?

First things first, what is Hyperautomation? Security Hyperautomation combines AI-driven automation, orchestration, and advanced analytics, enabling your security teams to manage complex workflows across multiple platforms autonomously.

Unlike traditional automation methods, Hyperautomation integrates seamlessly with existing security stacks and business processes, enhancing your team’s ability to respond effectively to evolving threats.

8 Hyperautomation Benefits That Deliver

1. Ease of Use and Simplicity

One of the top benefits of Hyperautomation is accessibility. With Torq, anyone on your security team, not just developers, can create powerful workflows in minutes with never-seen-before efficiency. Thanks to its drag-and-drop interface, the solution is powerful enough to handle the most complex threat responses yet easy enough to deploy. Unlike legacy SOAR solutions, multiple teams can eliminate repetitive security tasks with automations that can be created in minutes.

2. Enterprise-Grade Security Architecture

Torq’s Hyperautomation platform is built for scale. Built on cloud-native, zero-trust principles, Hyperautomation ensures extensive security at scale. For example, Torq delivers immutable activity logs, granular role-based access controls, and strict adherence to compliance, addressing critical operational gaps common in legacy SOAR solutions.

3. Measurable ROI and Cost Savings

With dashboards like Torq Insights, security leaders can track real-time gains in productivity, cost savings, and incident resolution times. Many teams see a 10X+ efficiency boost within weeks, as Hyperautomation eliminates repetitive tasks and accelerates key metrics like MTTR and case closure rates.

4. Intelligent Case Management 

Another key benefit of Hyperautomation is that it autonomously orchestrates the analysis and remediation of security cases. Rather than manually managing a security case’s progress, Hyperautomation workflows can be triggered by case-specific actions. 

When a case severity changes or a new observable is added, Hyperautomation moves the case forward by intelligently adjusting the priority, assigning the appropriate field of ownership, or even beginning the remediation process. This accelerates the detection, analysis, and response of security issues, freeing up significant analyst time to focus on strategic activities. 

5. Lower Services Overhead

Unlike traditional SOAR solutions, Hyperautomation platforms don’t need costly professional services to write complex Python scripts that bend rigid pre-built connectors or inflexible use case playbooks. 

Torq’s advanced agentic AI capabilities provide guided coding expertise across scripting languages such as SSH, PowerShell, SQL, Python, BASH, Kubernetes, AWS, GCP, Azure CLI, and more. This eliminates the need for any level of coding experience or unexpected expenses from third-party consultants. Achieve your automation goals quickly and efficiently without hidden charges.

6. Secure Connectivity

Hyperautomation eliminates the need for risky firewall modifications or VPN setups. With Torq’s zero-trust containerized agents, outbound-only connections securely integrate your on-premise infrastructure, maintaining security posture across any variation of cloud, hybrid, or on-premise environments.

7. Integrate Anything. Automate Everything.

Automate virtually any task or use case across any solution in your security stack with Hyperautomation’s agentic AI-driven workflow-building experience. Simply describe a workflow, use case, or outcome using natural language to guide Torq’s AI agents as it implements workflows to secure your organization faster than ever before. Or leverage Torq’s library of thousands of pre-built integrations, steps, templates, and AI prompts to inspire your next Hyperautomated security use case.

8. Extensibility Across the Organization

With Hyperautomation, you can empower your organization beyond security by connecting to collaboration, communication, and infrastructure applications — and more. Torq’s near-limitless connectivity enables security teams to interact with non-security employees, streamlining just-in-time access, information gathering, and incident response. 

SOAR Is Dead — and Hyperautomation Is the Answer

SOAR promised automation but delivered frustration. It’s slow, complex, and fundamentally not built for modern cybersecurity needs. Security Hyperautomation is the next evolution and the benefits are clear: faster to deploy, easier to scale, and purpose-built for the cloud-native, AI-driven SOC.

Don’t let legacy tools hold your team back. Start realizing the full value of AI-powered automation.

The Kill Your SOAR Guide has all the details on how to migrate from legacy SOAR to Torq.

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Insights News

Accelerating Torq’s Vision: Announcing Our Series C Funding Round

By Ofer Smadari, CEO
September 24, 2024
4 Minute Read
The latest Torq funding round closed with $70M in Series C funding — fueling our mission of revolutionizing SecOps through the Generative AI-based Torq Hyperautomation Platform and Torq HyperSOC solution.

I’m excited to share some significant news that marks a pivotal milestone in Torq’s journey. We’ve successfully closed our Series C funding round, securing a $70M investment to propel our mission of revolutionizing SecOps through the Generative AI-based Torq Hyperautomation Platform and cutting-edge Torq HyperSOC solution.

A Journey Fueled by Innovation

When we launched Torq three years ago, our vision was clear: To transform SOC automation and operation teams with solutions that not only defend against sophisticated threats, but also streamline and hyperautomate SecOps at the largest global enterprises. During the past three years, our dedicated team has worked tirelessly to build the Torq Hyperautomation Platform which seamlessly integrates with any existing infrastructure and security tool, providing the unparalleled ability to instantly and precisely remediate security events, and orchestrate complex security processes at scale. 

This funding round is more than just a financial boost. It reflects the confidence of our investors and the strength of our technology. We’re thrilled to continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in cybersecurity, particularly with a focus on Hyperautomation.

Doubling Down on Generative AI

A key highlight of this funding round is our commitment to double down on Generative AI. We recognize that Generative AI has transformative potential in enhancing cybersecurity. By integrating these advanced technologies into our platform, we aim to provide even more sophisticated threat detection, response automation, and predictive capabilities.

Generative AI will empower our systems to analyze vast amounts of data and generate actionable insights in real-time. This will not only improve the accuracy and efficiency of SecOps, but also enable our customers to stay ahead of adversaries with cutting-edge defensive measures.

What Series C Means for Us and Our Customers

Series C will accelerate our growth in several key areas:

  1. Innovation and R&D: We’ll invest heavily in R&D to enhance our platform’s capabilities, ensuring we stay ahead of emerging threats and provide our customers with state-of-the-art solutions.
  2. Expansion of Our Talent Pool: To drive our vision forward, we need the best minds in the industry. This funding will allow us to expand our team and bring in experts who are as passionate about cybersecurity and Hyperautomation as we are.
  3. Market Penetration and Customer Growth: With this capital, we’ll accelerate our go-to-market strategy and scale our operations to reach more businesses and organizations globally. Our commitment to innovation has already attracted a rapidly growing customer base, and we are excited to extend our reach even further. New and existing customers will benefit from enhanced features, faster deployment, and robust security measures designed to meet their evolving needs.
  4. Customer Success and Support: We’re dedicated to providing exceptional products and ensuring our customers have the support they need to maximize their investment in our technology. This funding will help us enhance our customer success programs and provide top-tier support to our growing client base.

Value for Our Growing Customer Base

Our expanding customer base is clear validation of our approach and the value we deliver. For our existing customers, this funding means we can continue to enhance and refine our platform, offering sophisticated tools and capabilities to keep their operations secure. For new customers, it represents an opportunity to leverage our state-of-the-art technology from a company committed to pushing the boundaries of cybersecurity and automation.

A Thank You to Our Partners and Team

This achievement would not have been possible without the unwavering support of our investors, partners, and incredible employees. Your collective belief in our vision and dedication to our mission have been instrumental in getting us to where we are today.

Looking Ahead

As we move forward, our commitment to innovation and excellence remains steadfast. We’re excited about the possibilities ahead and are more determined than ever to lead the way in cybersecurity and Hyperautomation. Together, we will continue to build a safer, more resilient digital world.

Thank you for your continued support and trust in us. Here’s to the next chapter of our journey!

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AI Hyperautomation Insights Product

The Evolution of Automation and AI for Security Operations

By Bob Boyle
September 23, 2024
8 Minute Read
AI for security operations automating a SOC at machine speed

Contents

In an era where cyber threats are constantly evolving, and security teams are overwhelmed by an ever-expanding flood of alerts, tech sprawl, and an ongoing talent shortage, modernizing the SOC is no longer optional — it’s imperative. AI for security operations offers the speed, intelligence, and resilience that today’s SOCs need to survive.

According to Gartner and IDC, automation and AI for security operations are the keys to unlocking new levels of efficiency, accuracy, and resilience in the fight against cyber threats. Learn how SecOps automation has evolved way (way) past SOAR and how SOC teams are putting agentic AI into action to elevate their teams and achieve machine-speed response times.

From Legacy SOAR to Hyperautomation + AI

  1. Legacy SOAR came — and went. The security operations automation journey began with Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) as the primary automation and orchestration option for SecOps teams. However, as the cybersecurity landscape grew more complex and the volume of threats increased, SOAR’s limitations became glaringly evident. Gartner even went as far as to say “SOAR is Obsolete” in their latest ITSM Hype Cycle (2024), placing SOAR at the bottom of their “Trough of Disillusionment”. 
  1. Hyperautomation unleashed limitless potential. Unlike SOAR, Hyperautomation offered unlimited security integrations, simple-to-build automations, and cloud-native scalability. The incorporation of case management into a Hyperautomation engine helped mitigate alert fatigue by enabling automated remediation of false positives and other low-risk threats while more intelligently prioritizing comprehensive security cases in a meaningful way. 
  1. AI for security operations sped up the SOC. The next evolution of security automation involved leveraging generative AI to augment human expertise, enabling SOC teams to achieve machine-speed detection and response.
  1. Agentic AI takes the wheel: Agentic AI is the next logical evolution of AI for security operations, delivering autonomous decision-making capabilities that can reason, plan, and execute goals without constant human supervision. It’s the brain behind the autonomous SOC, freeing up analysts to do the strategic work. IDC’s report highlights that agentic AI can solve problems, adapt to its environment, and make complex decisions without human intervention. This shift moves SOCs from human-in-the-loop to human-on-the-loop supervision.

The modern SOC has arrived. As Gartner recently highlighted, to overcome the existential challenges that continue to plague SOC teams, security operations must continue to adapt. This brings us to the future of SecOps, where the gold standard for the modern SOC is a purpose-built combination of Hyperautomation and agentic AI to achieve the autonomous SOC.

Benefits of Adopting Automation and AI for Security Operations 

AI for security operations is critical not just for efficiency but for survival. It’s about alleviating the pressure on SOC teams, helping to avoid burnout and reducing the four million+ talent shortage gap that exists in the cybersecurity industry today. 

Gartner predicts that “by 2028, AI in threat detection and incident response will rise from 5% to 70%, primarily augmenting — not replacing — human analysts.”

As Gartner highlights, while the growth of AI continues to expand, its primary aim should be to augment the existing staff operating the SOC, not replace them entirely. This is good to keep in mind, as many organizations are hesitant to fully entrust AI with their security operations. However, with the rise of AI used in targeted attack campaigns, most organizations do recognize that it is near impossible for humans alone to keep pace with today’s quantity and complexity of threats.

When implementing AI for security operations, the most successful benchmarks to strive for are: 

  • Eliminating alert fatigue
  • Improving SOC analyst morale
  • Getting time back to focus on critical threats
  • Mitigating threats more quickly and efficiently
  • Increasing the accuracy of results

The benefits of automation and AI for security operations are not in removing human decision-making altogether but rather in upskilling the most junior SOC analysts while preventing the most experienced analysts from burning out in their role. 

To fully realize the potential of AI for security operations, organizations need a solution that combines context awareness and autonomous action. That solution is Socrates.

Introducing Socrates: Your AI SOC Analyst

Torq Socrates is our AI SOC Analyst capable of deep research, planning, and autonomous execution of end-to-end security case management. Socrates acts as an OmniAgent, coordinating multiple specialized AI Agents for contextual alert triage, incident investigation, and auto-remediation of Tier-1 tasks. 

For critical threats, Socrates augments your team’s expertise — enabling them to take action faster thanks to natural-language, human-AI collaboration.

There are two primary ways SOC teams are using Socrates to handle security cases today:

  1. Assigning cases to Socrates for end-to-end autonomous remediation
  2. Faster human-on-the-loop remediation with AI augmentation

1. Autonomous Remediation

First, SOC teams can assign specific cases to Socrates for auto-remediation without requiring any human intervention. 

In traditional analyst remediation, when a case is assigned, the analyst typically consults a runbook to guide them through the response required to contain the specific event (or events) that appear within the case. 

From start to finish, the triage, investigation, and remediation of a single case can take a human analyst 30 minutes or more, depending on the experience level of the analyst. In larger enterprises, there may even be multiple analysts with varying responsibilities involved in the lifecycle of a case — one for the initial triage, one for the Tier-2 investigation, and another for the incident response.

Socrates follows the same runbook planning and execution process but instead leverages a team of AI agents to craft, plan, and execute highly customized incident response strategies — at machine speed. Socrates’ leverages agentic AI to analyze SOC-defined runbooks written in natural language, learn from past outcomes, identify attack patterns, and continuously refine response plans to adapt to new threat vectors —  resulting in complete auto-remediation of 95% of cases in mere minutes.    

For cases that increase in severity based on Socrates’ agentic investigation or as new case data is added, raising the threat to a critical level, SOC teams can build off-ramps into each runbook that tell Socrates when to escalate cases to a human analyst for intervention.

2. Faster Human-on-the-Loop Remediation

Which brings us to the second use case: leveraging Socrates to help SOC teams investigate and take action on the cases that do require human decision making — faster. 

Analysts who are assigned critical cases for human-guided remediation can take advantage of Torq’s Multi-Agent System (MAS) by using natural language to chat with Socrates and ask for: 

  • AI-generated case summaries: Faster access to real-time and historical case observables, attachments, associated indicators of compromise (IOCs), or current case status enables streamlined decision-making by eliminating irrelevant noise.
  • Deep research investigations: Enrich cases by uncovering hidden attack patterns across diverse data sources and third-party threat intelligence to help precisely assess the threat impact and improve strategic threat prioritization.
  • Agentic AI-augmented remediation: Take action across the security stack using AI agents to trigger complex remediation workflows through Torq’s Hyperautomation platform, significantly reducing the amount of time from case assignment to case resolution.  

With Socrates, even a brand new analyst who hasn’t been trained on how to leverage the full functionality of every security solution in their stack can easily ask Socrates to deploy AI agents that can quickly quarantine devices, isolate hosts, or kick off a password reset — without the risk of human error. 

In its simplest form, Socrates was built to do what Torq has set out to do from the very beginning: Hyperautomate SecOps. By coordinating a team of AI agents, Socrates can automate the most repetitive tasks and reduce Tier-1 triage and investigation by 90% — helping humans respond to threats faster.

Embracing Hyperautomation and AI for Security Operations 

In an era where cyber threats are constantly evolving, the modernization of the SOC is no longer optional — it’s imperative. The inclusion of AI for security operations — like Torq Socrates — marks a pivotal shift in how SOC teams can combat alert fatigue, tech sprawl, and talent shortage. 

By integrating Hyperautomation and AI, Torq HyperSOC exemplifies how AI for security operations drives faster detection, smarter decisions, and machine-speed remediation, achieving:

  • Up to 90% reduction in investigation times
  • 3-5x increase in SOC alert capacity without additional headcount
  • Autonomous remediation of over 95% of security threats

AI for security operations lets teams regain significant amounts of time, allowing human analysts to focus on more strategic tasks while maintaining control over critical operations. The future of the SOC lies in this harmonious blend of human expertise and intelligent automation, setting a new standard for operational efficiency in security operations.

Want to learn more about the SOC’s evolution from automation to autonomy? IDC’s Spotlight Report explores why agentic AI for security operations is the next leap in the autonomous SOC. 

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Use Cases

The Future of Automated Threat Intelligence: 6 Enrichment Use Cases

By Torq
September 20, 2024
7 Minute Read

Contents

Cyber threats move fast — your threat intelligence should move faster. But most SOC teams spend more time drowning in false positives and manually correlating threat data than actually responding to real threats.

Automated threat intelligence changes this. With AI-driven automated intelligence, security teams can instantly collect, analyze, and act without sifting through endless alerts and indicators of compromise (IOCs). This shift from playing catch-up to a proactive, automated defense is critical to outpace attackers.

What is Automated Threat Intelligence?

Threat intelligence is the evidence-based collection of information and the observation of the capabilities, techniques, motives, goals, and targets of an existing threat. Simply put, it’s everything that you know about an attacker — actual or potential — based on their motives and how badly they can damage your business assets.

Threat intelligence is not a checklist. It’s a cycle of well-defined processes and operations that involves collecting raw data, cleaning and normalizing it into actionable observables, comparing it to current data to remove duplicates, and then storing it in a structured, human-readable format. That’s a lot of work.

And here’s the reality: SOCs are flooded with data — OSINT feeds, commercial intelligence, SIEM alerts, and internal security logs. Sorting through this manually is incredibly inefficient. Meanwhile, threat actors are evolving, moving faster, and becoming more evasive.

This is where security automation comes in. Instead of relying on analysts to manually collect, correlate, and respond to intelligence data, automated threat intelligence streamlines and enriches alerts, automatically prioritizes threats, and triggers incident response.

The Importance of Automated Threat Intelligence in the SOC

Threat intelligence is the backbone of a SOC, setting apart reactive teams from proactive ones. Here’s why it matters:

  • Automated threat intelligence adds important context to threats so teams know what they see.
  • It identifies attackers’ tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), giving insight into how threat actors operate.
  • Intelligence can enable faster and smarter decision-making, reducing response time and preventing data loss.
  • By increasing efficiency, automated intelligence makes it easier to demonstrate ROI and value.

What is Threat Intelligence Enrichment?

Threat intelligence enrichment is the process of adding context to raw security threat data in order to better understand the threat. 

Imagine this scenario: You detect a wave of port scans against your servers. You know the IP addresses of the hosts from which the port scans originated, but you don’t know much more than this.

With threat intelligence enrichment, you could immediately gain insights like: 

  • Where the scanning servers are located
  • The operating systems and infrastructure they’re using
  • Whether the IPs are linked to known botnets, advanced attackers, or recent global threats
  • If these specific scans have been flagged in association with malware campaigns targeting similar organizations

With this enriched intelligence, your SOC can respond with precision and accuracy, blocking known malicious IPs, strengthening defenses against relevant attack vectors, and prioritizing investigations based on risk level. 

Of course, you can manage your threat intelligence data manually by correlating and comparing it. That approach, however, is not practical at scale. So, that begs the next question: How can we automate threat intelligence enrichment?

6 Ways to Automate Threat Intelligence Enrichment

1. Enrich Alerts Across Multiple Sources

Security teams need to correlate data from OSINT, intelligence feeds, internal logs, and SIEMs — but they’re stuck manually sifting through inconsistent, raw data. This delays investigations and allows threats to slip through.

Torq Hyperautomation™ automatically collects and correlates threat intelligence across all sources, filtering out false positives and providing actionable insights. Torq ingests, correlates, and enriches raw threat intel in real time, prioritizing alerts that actually matter.

Key Benefits For Alert Enrichment
Reduces the risk of false positives and false negatives in threat detectionAutomates the process of collecting and analyzing dataPrioritizes alerts, provides contextual information, and recommends response actionsQuickly and efficiently make informed decisions, reducing the response time to potential threats

2. Automate EDR, XDR, and SIEM Alerts

Manually managing alerts from EDRs, XDRs, and SIEMs can be challenging when dealing with large amounts of data. A Hyperautomation platform integrates across EDR, XDR, and SIEM platforms, automating alert handling and prioritization. It triages, enriches, and remediates alerts in real time, slashing MTTR and freeing up analysts to focus on real threats.

With Torq Hyperautomation, when an EDR alert flags a malicious file, Torq automatically quarantines, blocks the source, and launches an impact assessment. Torq is the connective tissue between these technologies, eliminating silos and enhancing data sharing.

Key Benefits For Alert Automation
Automates the process of collecting and correlating data from multiple technology sourcesRapidly identifies and responds to potential security threatsFrees up analysts to focus on critical tasks and work on strategic initiativesReduces response times, minimizing the impact of potential security incidents

3. Streamline Team-Based Threat Hunting

Threat hunting is the proactive search for threats that may have evaded detection by traditional security technologies. This process requires highly skilled analysts to investigate, but it is also a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. A Hyperautomation platform can centralize all the data, streamline the data correlation, and facilitate collaborative and automated threat hunts, reducing investigation times.

Torq’s AI-powered threat hunting assists SOC analysts by proactively analyzing high-velocity and high-volume data sets from multiple sources. It’s able to identify patterns, analogies, and IOCs that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

Key Benefits For Threat Hunting
Automates the process of sharing information and delegating tasksProvides workflows to facilitate collaboration between multiple teams in threat huntingImproves the efficiency and effectiveness of threat hunting capabilitiesIdentifies and responds to potential threats more quickly and accurately

4. Align Processes

Disconnected security processes create inefficiencies, gaps, and compliance risks. Hyperautomation aligns security processes across teams and tools, ensuring every security event follows a standardized, automated workflow. 

For example, if a SIEM alert flags a compromised user account, Torq Hyperautomation automatically pulls identity and access logs, verifies behavioral anomalies, and notifies the security team with recommended actions.

Key Benefits For Process and Procedure Alignment
Standardizes security processes and proceduresEnsures all security workflows are repeatable and consistently applied across the organizationEnhances visibility into potential threats allowing organizations to proactively address concernIdentifies and responds to potential threats more quickly and effectively

5. Trigger Workflows Across Disparate Infrastructures

Security teams cannot manually manage the sheer volume and velocity of security data generated by different security technologies. They need a better way to identify and respond to threats. Hyperautomation can integrate EDR, SIEM, email security, cloud security, MDM, and endpoint security, plus more, allowing organizations to trigger cross-platform security actions.

When an incident is triggered in a workflow, Torq Hyperautomation can launch containment workflows and notify stakeholders.

Key Benefits For Workflow Triggering
Extracts maximum value from existing investments by integrating disparate security technologiesAutomates security workflows across the entire security tools stack


Collects and analyzes large volumes of data at scale to reduce noise


Responds to potential threats more quickly and accurately, reducing the MTTR


6. Minimize Manual Response Dependencies

Security incidents need instant response, but human remediation is too slow. The longer it takes to contain an attack, the more damage is done. Hyperautomation can speed up the entire response process, reducing manual effort and slashing MTTR. 

If an endpoint security tool flags a malicious file, Torq Hyperautomation instantly isolates the device, blocks the attack vector, and launches an automated investigation.

Key Benefits For Minimizing Manual Response Dependencies
Automates the coordination of incident response activities across different teams and technologiesResponds to threats with minimal manual human dependencies, helping improve and scale incident response capabilities
Assists with centralizing the coordination and multi-team collaboration to minimize the risk of errors and miscommunications
Provides workflows to help organizations respond to security incidents more efficiently, quickly, and accurately

The Role of AI in Threat Intelligence

AI plays a pivotal role in threat intelligence automation. It rapidly analyzes massive volumes of data to detect patterns, anomalies, and indicators of compromise that human analysts might miss. 

This dramatically improves detection accuracy, speeds up response, and helps organizations stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated attackers. In short, AI in threat intelligence turns reactive security into proactive, predictive defense.

Ready to automate your threat intelligence operations with AI-driven Hyperautomation? See how Torq can help.

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Hyperautomation

Security Automation Explained — and Why It’s Essential for Modern SOCs

By Torq
September 17, 2024
9 Minute Read

Contents

Security teams are drowning — managing 10,000+ daily alerts, stretched thin by an ongoing cybersecurity talent shortage, and struggling to keep up with evolving threats. The solution? Security automation, particularly AI-driven security Hyperautomation.

What is Security Automation?

Security automation leverages automated workflows to handle critical cybersecurity tasks at machine speed— eliminating time-consuming manual processes like threat detection, analysis, and response. By automating these repetitive tasks, organizations can increase efficiency and accuracy and ensure a consistent security posture against threats.

The gold standard of security automation is AI-driven Hyperautomation, enabling security teams to move beyond simple automation and build an autonomous SOC for even greater efficiency and security gains.

Cybersecurity is essential to every organization — but without automation, it’s slow, resource-intensive, and prone to human error. Manual workflows bog down security teams, stretching time and resources thin while leaving gaps in threat detection, assessment, and remediation. Automating security not only accelerates response times but also ensures accuracy, eliminating costly mistakes and inefficiencies.

Cybersecurity automation uses technology to identify, understand, and respond to threats within your organization’s environments and to execute repetitive and time-consuming tasks. In other words, when you automate security, much of the grunt work can be handled by software, with limited, if any, manual intervention. This is especially useful when dealing with a high volume of alerts, allowing the software to filter out the low-priority and false positives threats and prioritize the critical ones, escalating to human analysts only when necessary. 

Why is Security Automation Necessary? 

Large organizations, from Fortune 500 companies to global multinationals, face existential security challenges that demand security automation solutions, including:

  • Expanding attack surface: Security teams face alerts on alerts on alerts, from phishing and endpoint vulnerabilities to insider threats and fraud. Without automation to filter, prioritize, and respond to these threats at machine speed, teams simply can’t keep up.
  • Global cybersecurity talent shortage: According to ISC2, the estimated cybersecurity workforce gap is 4.76 million. SOC teams are stretched thin, and this problem is only getting worse. As tech stacks expand across multi-cloud environments, security teams’ capability to manage them is maxed out. Cloud security automation isn’t replacing analysts — it’s making their jobs possible.
  • Siloed security architecture: SecOps teams manage 70+ security tools across environments. Without integrations to combine these workflows, security teams face misaligned processes, inefficient work, and manual effort that slow down response times.

“60% of line of business users agree an inability to connect systems, apps and data hinders automation.” – ZDNET

How Security Automation Benefits Teams

  • Enhanced Efficiency: Cybersecurity automation eliminates repetitive tasks like data analysis and incident investigation. By streamlining workflows, security teams can dramatically reduce time-consuming processes, improve mean-time-to-respond (MTTR), and alleviate operational fatigue — boosting productivity, agility, and overall security resilience.
  • More Accurate Response: Manual processes run the risk of human error. Security automation minimizes this risk by implementing consistent detection and quicker responses. It also shortens the time-to-action for remediation, preventing further risks to the business.
  • Reduced Analyst Burnout: By automating time-consuming manual processes, security automation lightens workloads and prevents the constant alert fatigue that drains security teams. Automation frees up time for analysts to develop their expertise instead of getting bogged down in repetitive, busy work.
  • Scalability: Automation in security centralizes tooling, enriches security cases with contextual intelligence, and provides real-time updates across platforms for seamless teamwork.
  • Reduced costs: Automation can help optimize resources and operational expenses by eliminating manual tasks, streamlining workflows, reducing the need for specialized staff, and improving resource allocation. It can also help avoid data loss, reputational damage, and other financial losses from security incidents.
  • Stronger compliance: Leveraging security automation tools to manage reporting and compliance activities decreases regulatory risk.

Security Automation vs. Security Orchestration and SOAR

Many assume security automation and orchestration are synonymous, but there are many important differences between the two. 

Security orchestration was intended to create a more streamlined workflow when connecting multiple tools and processes for security teams to act with greater efficiency and confidence. With SOAR, we all know this didn’t happen. 

SOAR platforms are slow, rigid, and don’t actually speed up processes for SOC teams. With limited integrations, outdated technology, and running on a single server, legacy SOAR hinders security teams’ ability to detect and respond to threats across environments — in fact, Gartner called SOAR an ‘obsolete’ technology that is being replaced by security workflow automation.

Security workflow automation brings together different teams, processes, and technologies to drive more efficient and scalable operations across a much broader scope. It does this through no-code, low-code, and even AI-generated workflow building, meaning that these tools can be used by just about anyone, not just security engineers, to define risks, enforce security rules, and remediate threats.

SOAR was built to automate security processes, but it’s slow, complex, and requires extensive coding. Security Hyperautomation is the next evolution, eliminating inefficiencies with AI and no-code workflow automation. Here’s how they compare:

Security Hyperautomation vs SOAR

Security HyperautomationSOAR
Architecture✔ Cloud-native architecture, elastic scalingX Monolithic architecture, limited scaling
Integrations✔ Limitless, extensible, continuous API updatesX Limited, inflexible, requires custom dev
Efficiency✔ Helps manage risks at scale without adding headcount or requiring specialized resourcesX Requires extensive resources and constant maintenance
Accessibility✔ Allows all stakeholders to define and enforce security requirements X Requires cybersecurity expertise to configure and operate
Automated Response✔ No-code automation frameworks can automate threat response based on rulesX Focuses more on orchestrating responses by security professionals than remediating 
AI Capabilities✔ Built-in AI agents for autonomous remediation, workflow building, data transformation, and moreX Limited or non-existent
Analyst Productivity✔ High, 10x+ operational boostX Low, prone to burnout
Overall Effectiveness✔ Future-proof solution, providing comprehensive security coverage and automationX Limited flexibility, struggles to meet modern SecOps demands

Ready to pull the plug on your SOAR? Get the migration guide >

How to Pick the Right Security Automation Tool

Choosing the right security automation solution isn’t just about checking a box — it’s about finding a platform that seamlessly integrates with your existing security stack, scales with your needs, and actually delivers on the promise of efficiency and protection. Here’s what to consider:

1. Integration and Compatibility

An enterprise security automation platform is only as good as its ability to integrate with your existing tools. Look for a solution that offers out-of-the-box integrations with all of your key security and IT infrastructure, as well as the flexibility to build custom integrations without requiring extensive coding. The best platforms eliminate manual bottlenecks by enabling security teams to connect their entire stack effortlessly — without waiting on vendor updates or custom development work.

2. True No-Code vs. Customization Capabilities

Some solutions claim to be “no-code” but still require extensive scripting to handle real-world security scenarios. Choose a platform that provides both no-code simplicity and AI-generated workflow building. You shouldn’t have to choose between ease of use and flexibility. A well-designed security automation tool allows security professionals of all skill levels to build workflows while still enabling advanced users to fine-tune automations for complex use cases.

3. AI-Driven Decision Making

Cybersecurity automation has evolved beyond simple if-this-then-that workflows. Modern solutions, like agentic AI-powered automation, don’t just execute pre-defined rules — they can analyze threats in real time, correlate signals across multiple tools, and autonomously remediate low-risk incidents. When evaluating platforms, look for AI-driven insights and contextual automation that help security teams make smarter, faster decisions.

4. Speed and Scalability

At this stage, you should evaluate potential security automation solutions with a Proof of Concept (POC), focusing on ROI and time-to-value. Choose the use cases that are mission-critical to your organization to assess how quickly and easily they can be operational. Additionally, ensure the platform can scale with your needs — handling increasing volumes of security events without performance degradation or the need for constant tuning.

5. Vendor Vision

Security threats evolve daily, and your security automation solution should grow with them. Choose a vendor with a clear vision for innovation — one that’s actively incorporating AI, Hyperautomation, and advanced case management capabilities. The best platforms don’t just keep up with security trends — they redefine them.

Case Study: Major Regional Bank Accelerates Phishing and Ransomware with Security Automation

A leading regional financial services organization turned to Torq for security automation to eliminate slow, inconsistent security responses and automate critical processes across its SOC. Facing a growing volume of phishing, ransomware, and fraud threats — along with a shortage of security analysts — the bank needed a solution that could streamline alert triage, investigation, and remediation in real time. 

Bypassing legacy SOAR solutions, this top 30 bank found the Torq Hyperautomation platform to be the best fit. By deploying Torq’s low-code/no-code security automation, the bank built and launched 100+ workflows in just three months, reducing mean time to investigate (MTTI) from hours to minutes. Torq’s limitless API integrations easily integrated with the bank’s existing security stack, allowing for a unified, automated approach to phishing and ransomware mitigation. 

The Future of Security Automation: Torq Hyperautomation and the Autonomous SOC

Security automation is an important step in modernizing cybersecurity, eliminating manual processes, and accelerating threat response. But the story doesn’t end there. 

The evolution of security automation and AI for security operations.
Explore the evolution of security automation and AI for security operations >

Security Hyperautomation enables SecOps to operate on a new scale thanks to AI-driven decision-making, adaptive workflows, and full-stack interoperability. This shift is powering a natural evolution toward the autonomous SOC, where AI doesn’t just automate security processes but also intelligently manages and optimizes them in real time.

Unlike traditional security automation, which focuses on predefined rule-based responses, Torq Hyperautomation dynamically connects disparate tools, enriches alerts with real-time intelligence, and autonomously executes remediation — all without manual intervention. It integrates AI and large language models (LLMs) to instantly correlate signals across multiple sources, filter false positives, and prioritize critical threats.

Where security automation removes friction, Hyperautomation eliminates inefficiencies entirely — allowing organizations to move from reactive to proactive, self-sustaining security operations. Agentic AI-powered automation can investigate, escalate, and remediate threats autonomously, closing security gaps faster than ever. AI-powered Hyperautomation doesn’t just improve security workflows — it redefines how modern SOC teams operate.

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