AI Hyperautomation Research Security Automation 101

12 Common Cybersecurity Attacks and How to Stop Them with Hyperautomation

By Torq

April 10, 2025

13 Minute Read

This guide breaks down the most prevalent types of cybersecurity attacks and how they continue to evade traditional defenses. More importantly, it shows how modern SOCs are automating their defenses with Torq Hyperautomation™ — using AI-powered detection, investigation, and response to identify, prioritize, and eliminate threats at machine speed.

What Is a Cyberattack?

A cyberattack is a deliberate attempt by malicious actors to infiltrate, disrupt, or damage a computer system, network, or digital infrastructure. These attacks are typically launched to steal data, alter or destroy systems, disrupt operations, or expose sensitive information.

It’s not just about stolen data or defaced websites anymore. Today’s cybercriminals and hackers are strategic. They exploit weaknesses across your people, processes, and technology — whether it’s a vulnerable application, a misconfigured cloud setting, or a team member who clicks on the wrong link.

The motivations vary — financial gain, espionage, political disruption, or even pure sabotage — but the outcome is always costly. Successful cyberattacks can cripple operations, exfiltrate customer or proprietary data, and inflict long-term reputational damage. For regulated industries, the fallout often includes hefty compliance fines and legal consequences.

12 Types Cyberattacks — and How to Stop Them with Hyperautomation

1. Phishing & Spear Phishing

Phishing attacks are among the most widespread and successful forms of cyberattacks. They typically arrive via email, SMS, or social media, disguised as legitimate communications from trusted entities. The goal is to lure recipients into clicking malicious links, downloading malware, or submitting sensitive data such as credentials, banking information, or PII.

When it comes to spear phishing, instead of sending mass emails, threat actors craft personalized messages using information about their targets (often scraped from LinkedIn, websites, or previous breaches). This makes them highly convincing and highly effective.

Successful phishing can lead to full account takeovers, data breaches, financial theft, or further malware infections. It remains one of the top initial access vectors for ransomware attacks.

Torq Advantage: Torq Hyperautomation™ integrates with several key partners to help organizations prevent and mitigate phishing attacks and avoid costly data breaches. To defend against phishing attacks, the first line of automated protection is the email inbox. Torq integrates with Secure Email Gateway (SEG) providers like Abnormal Security, Microsoft, Proofpoint, and Mimecast to improve detection and response by correlating insights across platforms. Once a threat is identified, Torq automatically removes malicious emails and enforces updated security controls.

Key tactics include analyzing multiple email attributes for risk signals, detonating suspicious content in sandbox environments to confirm threats safely, and blocking malicious senders and domains organization-wide to stop future attacks.

2. Denial-of-Service (DoS & DDoS)

DoS attacks flood a system or server with traffic until it becomes unresponsive. DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial-of-Service) use networks of infected devices (botnets) to generate massive traffic volumes from multiple sources, making them harder to block.

DDoS attacks can cripple online services, e-commerce platforms, or customer portals, especially during peak hours. While often used to cause disruption, they can also serve as cover for more covert cyber intrusions.

Torq Advantage: Torq defends against DoS and DDoS attacks by integrating with providers like Cloudflare, Akamai, and AWS to automate real-time detection, response, and remediation. Triggered by Cloudflare alerts, Torq workflows can correlate traffic anomalies, block malicious IPs or domains, adjust firewall or rate-limiting rules, and alert teams via Slack, Teams, or ITSM.

3. Spoofing

Spoofing tricks users or systems into believing a malicious source is trustworthy, via email, IP, DNS, or even internal system impersonation. Domain lookalikes and deepfake voice or video are increasingly used in spoofing, particularly in executive impersonation fraud.

Torq Advantage: For impersonation-based spoofing like CEO fraud or Slack impersonation, Torq uses behavior analytics from IAM tools like Okta and Microsoft Entra ID: flag anomalies in sender behavior, access requests, or login locations and auto-enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA), revoke sessions, or escalate for identity verification.

4. Code Injections

SQL Injection (SQLi) is a code injection technique targeting web applications that interact with databases. Hackers can manipulate backend databases by inserting malicious SQL statements into input fields (such as login forms).

SQLi can expose or tamper with sensitive records, bypass authentication mechanisms, and even escalate access privileges. It’s especially dangerous for e-commerce, SaaS, and any app handling sensitive or financial data.

Torq Advantage: Torq protects against malicious code injection attacks by sanitizing all user inputs and workflow data using built-in utilities like jsonEscape and Escape JSON String. These steps ensure malicious payloads can’t be interpreted as executable code during automation. All scripts in Torq run in a secure, sandboxed environment with strict access controls. Torq also applies input validation and enforces least-privilege access to prevent unauthorized actions, even if injection is attempted. Additionally, every workflow execution is logged and monitored, enabling automated responses to any suspicious behavior.

5. Password Attacks

Password-based attacks aim to compromise user credentials. They come in multiple forms:

Brute force: trying every possible combination
Dictionary attacks: using common passwords
Credential stuffing: reusing leaked credentials across services

Weak passwords, lack of MFA, and poor password hygiene make systems more vulnerable. Gaining access to even one user account can allow hackers to escalate privileges, exfiltrate data, or distribute malware internally.

Torq Advantage: Torq helps protect against password attacks by automating identity-centric security workflows across your entire authentication stack. It integrates with IAM, MFA, and SSO providers like Okta, Azure AD, Duo, and Ping Identity to monitor suspicious login activity, such as brute force attempts or credential stuffing. When anomalies are detected, Torq can:

Automatically block IPs or user accounts after repeated failed logins
Enforce step-up authentication or password resets based on contextual risk
Notify SecOps teams via Slack, Teams, or ticketing systems
Correlate identity signals with threat intel to identify compromised accounts
Trigger full response workflows, including deprovisioning or re-authentication flows

By automating detection, correlation, and response, Torq reduces the exposure window and prevents password-based compromises from escalating into breaches.

6. Insider Threats

Insider threats arise from individuals within the organization — employees, contractors, or partners — who misuse their access. These threats can be malicious (data theft, sabotage) or negligent (falling for phishing, misconfiguring systems).

Insiders bypass perimeter defenses and often have direct access to sensitive assets. Detecting insider activity is difficult, making this a high-risk attack vector in regulated industries like finance and healthcare.

Torq Advantage: Torq protects against insider threats by automating the continuous monitoring, detection, and response to anomalous user behavior across identity, endpoint, and cloud systems. It integrates with platforms like Okta, CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, and data loss prevention (DLP) tools to detect deviations from normal activity, such as unusual login times, excessive data downloads, or privilege escalation.

7. Supply Chain Attacks

A supply chain attack targets third-party vendors, software dependencies, or service providers to reach a larger target organization. Examples include:

Malware in software updates (e.g., SolarWinds)
Compromised APIs or SDKs
Vulnerabilities in third-party platforms or logistics partners

These attacks are stealthy, difficult to detect, and highly scalable. They exploit trust relationships to bypass traditional defenses, often affecting hundreds or thousands of downstream organizations.

Torq Advantage: Torq helps prevent supply chain attacks by continuously monitoring and securing third-party integrations, tools, and services. It integrates with code repositories, SaaS platforms, package managers, and CI/CD pipelines to detect anomalies, unauthorized changes, and known vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

These attacks exploit human behavior rather than technical flaws. Threat actors may impersonate executives (CEO fraud), fake emergencies, or build trust over time (pretexting) to trick victims into disclosing sensitive data or performing unauthorized actions.

Social engineering can bypass even the most robust technical controls. It’s often used as the first step in broader attacks like business email compromise (BEC) or ransomware deployment.

Torq Advantage: Torq protects against social engineering attacks by integrating with identity platforms to detect suspicious account activity in real time. When unusual behavior is detected, it can automatically trigger actions like step-up authentication, account lockdown, or escalation to analysts.

Torq enriches alerts with threat intelligence and behavioral context to distinguish real threats from false positives. For confirmed attacks, it automates full response, isolating users, blocking malicious domains, and notifying teams through Slack, Teams, or ticketing systems. This automation reduces analyst fatigue and ensures faster, more accurate responses to identity-based threats.

9. Zero-Day Exploits

Zero-day attacks take advantage of unknown or unpatched software vulnerabilities. Because the vendor is unaware and no fix exists at the time of the attack, these threats are extremely dangerous. Organizations have no immediate defense, making zero-days a favorite tool for sophisticated threat actors. Once disclosed, the race is on to patch before mass exploitation begins.

Torq Advantage: Torq protects against zero-day exploits by automating rapid detection, enrichment, and response workflows across your security stack. When suspicious activity or anomalous behavior is flagged by tools like EDR, NDR, or threat intelligence platforms, Torq immediately correlates the event across systems to determine risk level.

Torq enhances visibility into potential zero-day indicators using real-time enrichment from threat feeds and behavioral data. It then automatically triggers protective actions such as quarantining endpoints, isolating network segments, or blocking suspicious domains. By eliminating manual delay, Torq helps security teams contain and remediate zero-day threats before they can escalate.

10. Malware

Malware (malicious software) encompasses viruses, worms, spyware, trojans, and ransomware. It infiltrates systems to damage, disrupt, or steal data. Ransomware, in particular, encrypts files and demands a ransom payment — often in cryptocurrency — for the decryption key.

Malware is among the most prevalent cybersecurity threats, encompassing various malicious software types designed to compromise and damage systems:

Viruses attach themselves to legitimate files or programs, spread from one system to another, corrupt or destroy data, and affect system performance.
Worms replicate independently across networks, rapidly spreading without user action, causing bandwidth overload and potential system crashes.
Trojans masquerade as legitimate software, tricking users into downloading malware that provides attackers with unauthorized access to systems.
Spyware secretly gathers sensitive user information, such as login credentials and financial details, without consent.
Ransomware encrypts data, holding systems hostage until ransom payments are made, severely impacting business continuity.

Torq Advantage: When tools like EDR, SIEM, or email security platforms identify suspicious file behavior, Torq automatically enriches the alert with threat intelligence, correlates it across systems, and launches predefined remediation workflows. These can include isolating infected endpoints, disabling compromised accounts, blocking malicious domains, and alerting internal stakeholders via Slack or ticketing systems.

11. Ransomware

Modern ransomware groups operate like organized businesses, using affiliate models (RaaS) and combining extortion with data leaks to increase pressure on victims.

Ransomware can shut down entire business operations for days or weeks. The financial impact includes ransom payments, incident response costs, lost revenue, and reputational damage. Sectors like healthcare, government, and retail are frequent targets.

Torq Advantage: Torq’s Hyperautomation capabilities help stop the attack early by instantly identifying abnormal encryption activity or lateral movement, triggering actions like locking down file shares, suspending network access, and kicking off recovery protocols. Torq also enables proactive protection by scanning IOCs from threat intelligence sources and applying them across your environment, preventing known malware from ever reaching your systems.

By automating investigation and response from detection to remediation, Torq helps reduce dwell time, minimize damage, and keep ransomware and malware threats from escalating into full-blown business crises.

12. AI-Powered Attacks

AI-powered threats aren’t just more efficient — they’re more deceptive, personalized, and scalable than anything seen before. They mimic humans, adjust based on feedback, and execute attacks autonomously at a scale no SOC could keep up with manually.

AI-powered cyberattacks differ from traditional threats due to:

Smarter threat intelligence: Unlike static, rules-based attacks, AI-powered threats learn from failed attempts and continuously optimize their strategies.
Autonomous targeting: AI automates target discovery, scouring public data, social profiles, and exposed assets to pinpoint weaknesses.
Personalized deception: Spear phishing becomes supercharged. AI customizes phishing campaigns based on granular details about each target, dramatically increasing success rates.
Deepfake impersonation: AI enables real-time creation of convincing voice or video deepfakes, fueling new forms.

As AI continues to evolve, so do the threats, making intelligent, automated defense essential.

How to Protect Against Cyberattacks

Employee training: Regularly train staff to recognize and report phishing, BEC, and social engineering threats.
Multi-factor authentication: Add identity layers like biometrics or tokens to stop attackers, even if passwords are stolen.
Password policies: Enforce strong, unique passwords and promote password manager use to prevent easy account takeovers.
Security audits: Run regular audits and vulnerability scans to find and fix security gaps before attackers do.
Threat detection tools: Use AI-driven tools for real-time visibility and faster threat detection across your environment.
Incident response plans: Create and test IR plans to act fast, minimize damage, and recover quickly after attacks.
Automate with Torq Hyperautomation: Eliminate manual tasks with AI-driven workflows that detect, triage, and respond to threats in real time.

Combatting Cyberattacks with Hyperautomation

The speed, volume, and complexity of today’s cyberattacks have outpaced what humans can handle alone. Traditional security models rely heavily on manual processes — analysts combing through alerts, chasing down indicators of compromise, and triggering containment steps one by one. That’s not just inefficient — it’s dangerous.

By combining intelligent automation with AI-driven decisioning, Torq Hyperautomation empowers security teams to detect, investigate, and respond to threats at machine speed. Instead of drowning in noise, analysts are armed with context-rich insights, automated playbooks, and dynamic workflows that act instantly across their entire security stack.

Here’s how:

Instant threat detection and prioritization: Torq listens across your entire security stack, continuously ingesting and analyzing signals. Our multi-agent system instantly triages threats based on risk, business context, and policy.
End-to-end case automation: Torq auto-generates security cases, populates them with all the evidence and context, and assigns them based on team workflows. No more swivel-chair analysis. Just the right response, right now.
AI-driven investigation and remediation: With Socrates, our agentic AI SOC Analyst, Torq doesn’t just respond; it thinks. It uses real-time threat intelligence, enriches alerts, recommends the next best action, and even auto-remediates incidents across your environment.

Stay Ahead of Cyber Threats with Torq Hyperautomation

Cyberattacks aren’t slowing down, and neither should your defenses. Understanding the most common types of cyberattacks is only the beginning. The real advantage comes from responding faster, smarter, and at scale. Torq Hyperautomation transforms your SOC with intelligent, AI-driven workflows that detect, investigate, and neutralize threats in real time, before damage is done.

Ready to see how Torq can revolutionize your cybersecurity operations with advanced automation and AI-driven security response?

Get the IDC Report

Understanding Security Incident Categories: A Guide to Smarter, Faster Response

By Torq

April 9, 2025

9 Minute Read

In security operations centers, the sheer volume of alerts can be overwhelming, so sorting out chaos starts with knowing what you’re looking at. Quickly distinguishing between a routine cybersecurity event and a genuine cybersecurity incident isn’t merely a matter of semantics — it’s fundamental to effective defense.

This blog breaks down the most prevalent types of cybersecurity attacks and how they continue to evade traditional defenses. More importantly, it shows how modern SOCs are automating their defenses with Torq Hyperautomation™ — using AI-powered detection, investigation, and incident response to turn security incident categories into action.

What is a Security Incident? (And Why Categorization Matters)

A security incident is an adverse event that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of a system and can negatively impact an organization. It can signify a breach of security policy, a violation of acceptable use, or a deviation from standard cybersecurity practices that has the potential to harm organizational assets or operations.

Security Incident vs. Security Event

Not every security event is an incident. A security event is any observable occurrence or change within a system or network, such as a login attempt or a file access. A security incident, however, means an event with the potential for negative consequences is actually happening or has happened.

Fifty phishing emails landing in user inboxes? That’s an event. A user replying to a phishing email to share confidential information? Now it’s an incident.

Examples of Security Incidents

A user clicks on a malicious link in a phishing email
Malware installed through a fake browser update
An employee accidentally emailed a sensitive file to the wrong recipient
A brute-force attack against user login portals
Unusual traffic spikes that turn out to be a DDoS attack

What are the Two Types of Security Incidents?

Cybersecurity incidents generally fall into two camps:

Intentional: Think malware infections, privilege abuse, social engineering attacks, or targeted phishing attacks
Accidental: Misconfigurations, user error, or lost devices (still very much incidents!)

What is an Information Security Incident?

An information security incident focuses specifically on threats to data, such as unauthorized access, exposure, modification, or deletion of sensitive information. If your intellectual property, customer data, or credentials are at risk, it’s in this bucket.

Why Categorizing Incidents is Critical for Consistent Response and Automation

Widely recognized frameworks like NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) and MITRE ATT&CK offer authoritative models for incident definition and classification, establishing a common operational language. Other established frameworks, such as ISO/IEC 27035, SANS cybersecurity incident categories, and ENISA guidelines, shape how organizations define and structure types of security incidents, particularly within regulated or global environments.

Categorizing incidents helps cybersecurity teams:

Rapidly understand a threat’s nature and potential impact
Triage faster with more context
Ensure consistent and predictable incident response
Lay the groundwork for incident response automation

The true power of incident categorization emerges when it informs and enables automated incident response. In the Torq platform, categorization directly feeds into the design and execution of security workflows and dictates escalation paths.

For example, when an alert is categorized as “malware,” an automated response workflow can be instantly triggered. This workflow might automatically isolate the compromised host and dispatch a contextual alert to the SOC team. This systematic approach substantially reduces alert fatigue, allowing security analysts to concentrate on complex, high-priority investigations rather than wading through noise. The result is significantly faster and more consistent response.

The 6 Most Common Security Incident Categories In Enterprise Environments — and How to Automate Them

Let’s break down the usual suspects. Here are the security incident categories you’ll encounter most in enterprise settings and how Torq Hyperautomation speeds up response.

1. Malware and Ransomware

Malware refers to malicious software designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to computer systems. Ransomware, a specific and highly disruptive type of malware attack, encrypts data and demands payment to get it back.

Example: A finance department user downloads an Excel file disguised as an invoice. Boom. The entire shared drive gets encrypted, accompanied by a ransom demand. This scenario can rapidly halt critical business operations.
Torq in Action: When malware attacks strike, Torq kicks in immediately — isolating infected endpoints, correlating alerts across systems, triggering EDR scans, and notifying the SOC automatically.

Social engineering uses psychological manipulation to trick users to take risky actions or disclose confidential data. Phishing is a type of social engineering that involves deceptive tactics, typically through emails or fraudulent websites, to dupe users into divulging sensitive information.

Example: An executive receives a highly convincing email seemingly from their bank, requesting immediate account verification. Clicking the embedded link directs them to a spoofed website, where their login credentials are harvested and then used for unauthorized financial transactions.
Torq in Action: Torq integrates with leading secure email gateways to flag risky messages, strip malicious links, and remove phishing attempts before users click. Confirmed phishing attacks trigger user notifications and IOC enrichment instantly.

3. Unauthorized Access and Privilege Misuse

Unauthorized access occurs when an individual gains entry to systems or networks without permission. Privilege misuse describes a situation where a user with legitimate access privileges abuses those permissions to access or exfiltrate data outside the scope of their authorized duties.

Example: A recently departed employee’s account remains active. Days later, the sensitive project documentation is downloaded.
Torq in Action: Torq automatically revokes stale credentials, triggers re-authentication flows, and alerts identity teams when suspicious access patterns emerge.

4. Insider Threats (Accidental and Malicious)

Insider threats originate from within an organization. They can be accidental, such as an employee inadvertently misconfiguring a critical server, or malicious, where an employee deliberately seeks to harm the organization, perhaps through intellectual property theft or system sabotage.

Example (accidental): An employee uploads sensitive information like customer data to a personal Google Drive for convenience.
Example (malicious): A disgruntled contractor copies or steals intellectual property before offboarding.
Torq in Action: Torq monitors user behavior across endpoints, identity platforms, and cloud systems to detect anomalies. Unusual activity like bulk file downloads, strange login times, or privilege escalation? Torq flags it and launches workflows to lock accounts, revoke access, and notify HR and legal — automatically.

5. Denial-of-Service (DoS/DDoS)

A Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack aims to render a service unavailable by overwhelming it with excessive traffic or requests, thereby preventing legitimate users from accessing it. A Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack achieves the same objective but utilizes multiple compromised systems, making mitigation significantly more challenging.

Example: A botnet sends millions of requests to your login page, knocking it offline.
Torq in Action: Torq integrates with tools like Cloudflare and Akamai to detect traffic anomalies, block bad IPs, and notify your team.

6. Data Breaches and Exfiltration

A data breach is unauthorized access to sensitive, protected, or confidential data. Data exfiltration is the unauthorized data transfer from a system or network to an external destination. (A data breach usually comes before exfiltration).

Example: A healthcare provider discovers that protected health information (PHI), including patient identities and medical histories, has been accessed and copied by an attacker.
Torq in Action: Torq listens for signs of exfiltration — like abnormal API calls or outbound traffic spikes — then correlates them across systems. If the signals stack up, it kicks off investigation, isolates affected systems, and accelerates breach response.

How Subcategories and Signals Drive Better Detection

Security incident subcategories enable much finer detection capabilities and facilitate highly targeted responses. Think of a crime scene investigation: rather than simply labeling an event as a “burglary”, categorizing it as “forced entry during specific hours” provides far greater context and detail.

Cybersecurity Incident Subcategories That Add Granularity

Some common sub-types of security incidents include:

Business Email Compromise (BEC): This is a subcategory of social engineering where an attacker impersonates a senior executive to deceive an employee into conducting unauthorized financial transfers or disclosing sensitive data. (You know the one: “Hey, it’s your CEO. Quick favor: I’m stuck in a board meeting and really need five $200 Apple gift cards for a client thing. Text me the codes ASAP, thanks! 🙏”)
Keylogger: This subcategory of malware is designed to record user keystrokes, potentially capturing credentials and confidential information.
Credential Stuffing: This is a subcategory of account compromise in which stolen username/password pairs (often sourced from unrelated data breaches) are used to gain unauthorized access to user accounts.

Detection Cues: Precursors vs. Indicators

Two types of signals help with detecting cybersecurity incidents.

Precursors = Early warning signals: These signals suggest an attack may be imminent, offering an opportunity for proactive intervention or prevention. For example, a sudden surge in failed login attempts against a critical system, or an unusual volume of emails containing suspicious attachments.
Indicators = Evidence of compromise: These represent direct evidence that a cybersecurity incident has occurred or is actively underway. For example, unauthorized file modifications on a critical server or a dormant account suddenly logging in from an atypical geographic location and exfiltrating substantial data volumes.

Security Incident Categorization Best Practices

To ensure effective categorization of security incidents, organizations should implement standardized frameworks like the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. Regular training for security personnel to familiarize them with the latest threats and incident types is crucial.

Additionally, utilizing Torq Hyperautomation™ can streamline the categorization process, allowing teams to focus their efforts on high-priority incidents.

Common Challenges in Security Incident Categorization

Despite having a robust categorization framework in place, organizations often encounter security incident categorization challenges such as a lack of real-time visibility into incidents or inadequate data for analysis. This is where Torq Hyperautomation™ shines, providing immediate insights and automating responses based on categorized incidents.

Categorization Is the First Step Toward Autonomous SOCs

Effective security incident classification isn’t merely a procedural step. Security incident categories enable intelligent triage, which fuels automation and accelerates response — all critical for building scalable, autonomous SOCs that can handle modern threat volume and complexity.

Learn how your SOC can move from reactive alert clickers to a strategic value center in the Don’t Die Manifesto.

Get the Manifesto

FAQs

Why is categorizing security incidents important for an organization?

Categorizing security incidents speeds up everything — from understanding threats to triggering the right response. Clear categories help teams triage smarter, tailor responses, prioritize efforts, and allocate resources effectively. Additionally, accurate categorization lays the groundwork for automation, enabling organizations to implement specific automated responses that minimize reaction time and lessen the impact of cyber threats.

How does Torq Hyperautomation enhance incident categorization?

Torq Hyperautomation streamlines the incident detection and identification and rapidly correlates security incidents with historical data — so your team doesn’t have to start from scratch every time an alert fires.

Can security incident categories evolve over time?

Absolutely. New threats = new security incident categories. That’s why staying current on security incident categorization frameworks to account for changes in the risk landscape is important. Staying agile in your response strategy ensures that your incident management system remains relevant and effective.

What role do employee training and awareness play in minimizing security incidents?

Well-trained employees are your first line of cybersecurity defense — especially against cybersecurity incidents like phishing and accidental leaks. Educating employees about common security threats and ensuring they understand how to recognize and report potential security events not only decreases security incident occurrence but also speeds up incident response and fosters a culture of security awareness.

How can an organization measure the effectiveness of its incident categorization processes?

Track metrics like response times (MTTR), accuracy of tagging, and resolution rates. If things are moving faster across the board, you’re on the right track.

What can organizations do to prepare for new types of security incidents?

Organizations should adopt a proactive approach that includes regular threat assessments and engaging with cybersecurity communities to stay informed on emerging threats. Keep tools current, threat intel flowing, and security incident response playbooks updated with what you’re learning.

How can an organization differentiate between a minor security incident and a major one?

It comes down to impact. Look at the number of compromised systems, the sensitivity of the data involved, legal implications, and business disruption. Use a risk framework to guide the incident response plan based on the severity of the security breach.

What tools can assist in the categorization of security incidents?

SIEMs, EDRs, and threat intel platforms all help with security incident categorization — especially when integrated with something like Torq to drive automated incident response.

How should organizations document security incidents for future reference?

Log the what, when, who, and how of the cyber incident. Torq makes it easy with AI-generated case summaries to help teams analyze trends and sharpen response over time.

What are some future trends in security incident categorization?

Smarter AI, adaptive frameworks, and real-time categorization that evolves as threats change. Torq’s already building toward that future.

Evolution Equity Partners’ Portfolio Companies Tackle a Cyber Crisis

By Patrick “PO” Orzechowski

April 7, 2025

4 Minute Read

Patrick Orzechowski (also known as “PO”) is Torq’s Field CISO, bringing his years of experience and expertise as a SOC leader to our customers. PO is a seasoned security veteran with a deep understanding of the modern security landscape. You can find him talking to SOC leaders and CISOs from major brands at cybersecurity events around the world.

I recently took part in a cyber crisis simulation event which showcased Evolution Equity Partners’ portfolio companies and made Torq’s real-world value strikingly clear.

The simulation presented a realistic scenario: a data breach at a fictional wealth management firm, with the attack’s progression followed through detection, investigation, response, and resolution. Participating companies included Torq, Sweet Security, Oleria, Halcyon, and Cytactic.

This cyber simulation reinforced the need for proactive security: automation, robust identity management, and agile cloud response. It also underscored the importance of having a crisis management system in place for simulating a live event — so when the inevitable happens, all teams, stakeholders, and external parties that need to be involved in resolving a major incident are included from the beginning.

A Cyber Crisis Simulation Unfolds

1. Detecting the Impossible Alert

The initial attack factor in the simulation was a compromised credential initially identified by an “impossible journey” detection in Torq’s AI-native Hyperautomation platform. Torq was able to identify this impossible travel through authentication logs that contained geographical source login information.

The targeted financial services company had several layers in place to detect and respond to these types of attacks, so the incident was kicked off through the initial case management system in Torq.

Through its AI-powered automated response capabilities, Torq’s platform triaged, enriched, and investigated the alert, ultimately determining that it required escalation.

Inside Torq’s platform, this event could then be tracked by the SOC throughout the incident lifecycle until being handed off to Legal, PR, and potentially cyber-insurance and external incident response partners.

2. Confronting the Extortion

After the initial attack, it was determined that the user did in fact access sensitive information contained in an S3 bucket, which was detected by Sweet Security’s unified detection and response platform.

Once the attacker procured the data, they sent an extortion threat letter to the company which included screenshots of contracts and other sensitive information. At this point, management had to:

Decide whether or not to disclose the breach
Determine whether or not the breach was “material”
Assess if they need to contact their customer base.

From there, Oleria identity security platform discovered the attacker had gained access to an insecure SharePoint site, but only accessed a limited amount of sensitive data.It was determined that the SharePoint site needed to be secured and, due to the limited data exposure, a negotiation team was brought in. They then found that the attacker was attempting to move laterally through the company’s systems.

3. Stopping Ransomware Escalation

From there, the company deployed Halcyon’s ransomware defense solution to determine if ransomware was active. Halcyon successfully detected and blocked infections on the systems where it was installed, but the attacker was able to begin encryption on systems where it was not.

The company then engaged Halcyon’s Professional Services to attempt to decrypt what the attacker was encrypting without having to pay for the keys.he keys.

Minimal Damage, Maximum Defense

In the end, the company was able to handle the incident without a breach disclosure and minimal impact to customer operations. This event could have been much worse if the services company did not have advanced detection and response capabilities already deployed within its security stack.

Torq streamlined detection and initial investigation through SOC automation and integration with the entire security stack.
Sweet Security correlated alerts and prevented exfiltration attempts in the cloud.
Oleria uncovered user account activities and assessed breach scope.
Halcyon blocked ransomware escalation and secured endpoints.
Cytactic enhanced tracking and decisionmaking capabilities for incident response.

Learn how Torq and Sweet Security operationalize cloud security automation >

Building Cyber Resilience through Proactive Simulation

This “impossible journey” simulation demonstrated the critical importance of establishing effective cybersecurity strategies and deploying innovative security solutions.

Proactive cyber crisis simulations enable businesses to build resilience and minimize the impact of potential attacks by:

Identifying vulnerabilities.
Improving mean time to detect and respond
Testing incident response plans
Improving decision-making under pressure
Understanding the impact of cyberattacks
Facilitating learning and continuous improvement

Want to learn more about leveling up your SOC’s automation and autonomous response capabilities? Read the SOC Automation Pyramid of Pain.

Read the Pyramid of Pain

Modern SOC Framework: How Scalable Security Ops Are Built for Today’s Threats

By Torq

April 4, 2025

10 Minute Read

Today’s security operations demand more: faster action, smarter decisions, and systems that don’t crack under scale. This isn’t just about staying ahead of attackers; it’s about rebuilding the SOC from the ground up, with automation at its core and resilience in its DNA. This is the blueprint for next-gen security operations — and it’s built for today’s threats.

What is a Security Operations Center (SOC) Framework?

A Security Operations Center (SOC) framework outlines the structure, roles, workflows, and technologies required for a team to effectively monitor, detect, investigate, and respond to cybersecurity threats. It ensures consistency, efficiency, and accountability across the SOC’s operations.

The Three Core Components of a SOC Framework

People: Security analysts, engineers, and managers responsible for triage, investigation, and incident response
Processes: Standard operating procedures for threat hunting, alert triage, escalation, and remediation
Technology: Essential tools such as SIEMs, EDR, IDS/IPS, and automation platforms power threat detection and response

Examples of SOC Frameworks

NIST Cybersecurity Framework: Focuses on five core functions — Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover — to manage cyber risk

MITRE ATT&CK: A detailed matrix of adversary tactics and techniques used to anticipate and understand attacker behavior

Custom frameworks: Many organizations tailor frameworks to their environments, blending industry standards with internal requirements

Benefits of Implementing a SOC Framework

Implementing a structured SOC framework equips security teams with the tools and clarity needed to respond faster, smarter, and more consistently to threats.

Stronger threat detection: Structured approaches enable proactive identification of emerging threats
Streamlined incident response: Defined roles and workflows reduce response times and errors
Reduced risk exposure: Frameworks enforce best practices, minimizing security gaps
Greater operational efficiency: Standardized processes eliminate ambiguity and improve team performance

Key Considerations for SOC Framework Success

A SOC framework must be practical, adaptable, and deeply aligned with the organization’s operational reality to maximize impact.

Integration: Frameworks must align with the organization’s broader security ecosystem and tools
Automation: Automating routine tasks boosts SOC capacity and reduces analyst fatigue
Continuous improvement: Frameworks should evolve with the threat landscape, incorporating lessons learned and new technologies

Rebuilding the SOC for the Cloud-First Era

The pace of digital transformation has reshaped enterprise infrastructure. Agile development, DevOps, and continuous deployment enable engineering teams to move faster than ever, shipping features in real time, automating updates, and expanding cloud-native environments at scale.

But this speed comes with complexity. Constantly evolving systems introduce new vulnerabilities, while fragmented environments spanning public cloud, on-premises infrastructure, SaaS platforms, APIs, and endpoints create blind spots that traditional security operations centers can’t handle.

Legacy SOC frameworks were built for static environments and perimeter-based defense. They were siloed, reactive, and heavily dependent on manual investigation. Threat detection often lagged behind attacker tactics, and incident response relied on slow, disjointed workflows. As a result, security became a bottleneck instead of a business enabler.

Modern security operations require a fundamentally different approach, one that’s cloud-first, automation-native, and intelligence-driven. A contemporary SOC framework must extend continuous visibility across hybrid cloud infrastructure, integrate seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines and SaaS ecosystems, and adapt to infrastructure changes and new threats in real time. Sophisticated threat actors now leverage automation and AI. To keep up, the SOC must do the same.

Modern SOCs are built for resilience and speed. They function as cross-functional, collaborative teams that leverage AI-powered analytics, automated decision-making, and integrated orchestration so that:

Alerts are triaged automatically
Threats are contextualized instantly
Responses are executed across the stack, from IAM and cloud to endpoint and network, without waiting for human input

The result is a security operations center that moves as fast as the business it protects. By evolving beyond the reactive, manually intensive models of the past, today’s security operations centers become strategic assets, delivering continuous monitoring, proactive threat hunting, and intelligent response at enterprise scale.

Torq’s Role in the Modern SOC: Real Automation for Real-World Demands

Modern SOC frameworks need more than strategy — they need execution. That’s where Torq comes in. Torq enables security teams to build and scale their SOC operations in alignment with today’s demands: speed, resilience, automation, and continuous improvement.

With Torq, security teams can operationalize SOC frameworks through:

Visual, no-code workflow automation that empowers analysts to orchestrate threat detection, investigation, and response without engineering support.
Seamless integration with existing SIEM, EDR, cloud security, and IAM tools, ensuring the entire tech stack works together to enforce your framework’s processes.
Enterprise-grade control and compliance with role-based access, audit logs, and policy enforcement that support governance across global SOC teams.

Torq HyperSOC™ is a fully autonomous security operations platform built for the realities of today’s threat landscape. HyperSOC leverages Hyperautomation and agentic AI to dynamically triage alerts, investigate incidents, and trigger precise remediation, all without human intervention. It automates the key components of your SOC framework: from detection logic and enrichment to playbook execution and case management.

Applying MITRE ATT&CK to Strengthen Detection and Response

MITRE ATT&CK (Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge) is a globally recognized, open-source framework that catalogs real-world adversaries’ tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) during cyberattacks. It serves as a behavioral threat model, helping SOC teams and threat intelligence analysts understand how attackers operate.

What it is: Rather than focusing solely on static indicators like IP addresses or file hashes, ATT&CK maps the full attack lifecycle, from initial access and privilege escalation to lateral movement, data exfiltration, and persistence. This enables security teams to build, test, and refine detection and response capabilities that align with how threats unfold in the real world.

How it’s used: Penetration testers and red teams use the framework to emulate adversary behavior and identify weaknesses in infrastructure. Blue teams use it to strengthen defenses by aligning detections and controls to known tactics and techniques, improving visibility, response speed, and resilience.

How it helps: MITRE ATT&CK provides a tactical blueprint of real-world adversary behaviors that SOC analysts can use to improve threat detection and incident response. By mapping alerts and incidents to specific ATT&CK techniques, analysts can identify coverage gaps, refine detection logic, and prioritize high-impact defenses.

Integrating MITRE ATT&CK into SOC workflows enables more proactive threat hunting, more precise response playbooks, and continuous alignment with evolving attacker tactics, strengthening security posture across the entire detection and response lifecycle.

Using MITRE D3FEND to Close Gaps and Validate Controls

MITRE D3FEND is the defensive counterpart to ATT&CK. It maps known tactics to countermeasures, offering prescriptive guidance to reduce attack surfaces and harden systems.

D3FEND empowers SOC teams to implement evidence-based controls, prioritize mitigations, and validate that defenses align with the real tactics adversaries use in the wild.

How Modern SOCs Operationalize MITRE Frameworks

Mature SOCs embed the MITRE ATT&CK and D3FEND frameworks into the fabric of daily operations. These frameworks provide a shared language and strategic lens for identifying detection gaps, simulating adversary behavior, and continuously refining defenses. But their true power is unlocked when paired with Hyperautomation.

With Torq Hyperautomation, SOC teams can:

Instantly remediate detection gaps identified in ATT&CK
Automatically update alert logic and enrich incidents based on mapped techniques
Simulate adversary behavior and validate controls using repeatable, automated workflows

For example, if ATT&CK highlights a missing control for lateral movement, Torq can trigger a sequence to update endpoint detection rules, notify appropriate analysts, and enforce IAM policy adjustments — all automatically.

This transforms the SOC into a self-improving system. One where detection, validation, and response are continuously optimized against evolving threats, and frameworks like MITRE become engines for operational excellence rather than compliance checkboxes.

Beyond automation, leading teams apply ATT&CK and D3FEND for threat modeling and control validation. They simulate realistic attack chains to test how controls hold up under pressure and then harden them based on empirical evidence. Over time, this creates a feedback loop, where detection logic, mitigation tactics, and automated response are continually optimized against evolving threats.

Scaling Smarter: Best Practices for High-Performance SOCs

Modern security operations center frameworks demand more than manual playbooks and reactive processes; they require automation that empowers analysts, accelerates response, and strengthens visibility across every layer of the infrastructure.

With platforms like Torq, SOC analysts can:

Eliminate alert fatigue and manual triage: Repetitive tasks like threat intel enrichment, investigation, and prioritization overwhelm analysts and delay response. Torq automates these processes by pulling context from SIEM tools, enriching alerts in real time, and routing them based on dynamic risk scoring, accelerating triage, and reducing cognitive load.
Embed no-code response directly in ChatOps tools: Incident response should happen where collaboration happens. Torq enables teams to execute security workflows natively within Slack, Microsoft Teams, or any ChatOps environment, allowing analysts to act quickly without switching platforms.
Automate compliance-ready incident documentation: Every step of an incident — from detection through resolution — is automatically logged, timestamped, and auditable. This ensures accurate records for compliance requirements without introducing additional overhead.

But automation alone doesn’t make a SOC resilient. To truly scale operations and mature security programs, organizations must follow best practices for building and evolving their SOC frameworks:

Align with MITRE ATT&CK, NIST CSF, and CIS Controls: Grounding your SOC framework in well-established standards ensures consistency, auditability, and defensibility. Integrating these frameworks into day-to-day workflows enables adaptive threat detection and informed decision-making.
Define and track KPIs that matter: Establish performance metrics such as Mean Time to Detect (MTTD), Mean Time to Respond (MTTR), and automation coverage. These indicators provide visibility into operational gaps and inform continuous investment and improvement.
Scale securely through software, not just headcount: Adding more analysts isn’t always sustainable. Automating Tier-1 triage, orchestrating response workflows, and optimizing alert routing allow SOCs to grow coverage and responsiveness without increasing overhead.

Together, security automation and strategic framework alignment transform the SOC from a reactive, overwhelmed team into a proactive, resilient, and high-performing function that delivers real security outcomes at enterprise scale.

Build a SOC Framework That Adapts as Fast as Threats Do

A modern security operations center framework must do more than meet regulatory standards — it must evolve with your business, your threat landscape, and your technology stack. Frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK, NIST CSF, and CIS provide the strategic foundation. But without automation, those frameworks remain theoretical.

Torq transforms them into action. By automating triage, response, compliance documentation, and control validation, Torq empowers SOC teams to operationalize frameworks in real time, not just for audits, but for actual defense.

Whether you’re scaling globally, modernizing legacy systems, or building your first SOC from scratch, the future of security operations depends on speed, context, and automation. Don’t settle for reactive checklists. Build an autonomous SOC that’s intelligent, resilient, and engineered to thrive in today’s threat environment.

Want to see how AI-driven Hyperautomation can modernize your SOC? Get the manifesto.

Get My Copy

Generative AI Cybersecurity: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and What Comes Next

By Torq

April 3, 2025

7 Minute Read

How Can Generative AI Be Used in Cybersecurity?

GenAI is built on deep learning, a subset of machine learning, using large neural networks known as transformers. These transformers are trained on billions of data points and optimized to understand and mimic language, behavior, and structure.

Many GenAI systems are modeled after GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer), which has learned how to respond to prompts in human-like ways by identifying patterns across massive data sets.

Here are some ways Generative AI can be used in cybersecurity:

Triage and enrichment: GenAI can automatically triage incoming alerts, enrich data from SIEM, EDR, and other sources, and generate clear, concise summaries.
Threat detection: Trained on historical attack data and threat patterns, GenAI models can identify indicators of compromise (IOCs) and anticipate emerging tactics.
Case documentation: Generative AI can produce case reports, threat timelines, and case summaries. These auto-generated insights reduce the need for manual documentation and simplify compliance reporting.
Threat hunting: Security analysts can use GenAI to query threat intelligence databases and data lakes using natural language prompts. This simplifies threat hunting workflows and empowers junior analysts to work at a higher level.
Workflow design: GenAI allows users to describe desired automations in natural language, which the system then converts into executable workflows. This eliminates the need for manual scripting and accelerates automation adoption across teams.

All of this helps analysts move faster — but it’s still reactive. It still requires humans in the loop. And it’s still just the beginning.

Challenges of Using Generative AI Alone

Without the right guardrails, GenAI in cybersecurity comes with serious risks:

Accuracy issues: GenAI can hallucinate. That means it can produce outputs that are confidently wrong. And in cybersecurity, that’s dangerous. An inaccurate summary of a threat, a misidentified IOC, or a fabricated correlation can derail an investigation, waste valuable analyst time, or worse, lead to improper remediation actions.
Data privacy: GenAI models are only as good as the data they’re trained on and how that data is handled. Feeding sensitive logs, incident data, or user information into GenAI without proper controls can lead to unintentional exposure of private data or regulatory violations. This is especially risky in regulated industries (finance, healthcare, etc.), where compliance failures come with heavy penalties.
Infrastructure overhead: Running LLMs requires serious computing, storage, and ongoing management. Even when using APIs from providers, the costs of integrating, fine-tuning, and securing the system can add up quickly. Without a well-architected platform, organizations often end up with fragile, expensive prototypes that don’t scale.
Threat actor access: You’re not the only one using GenAI. Threat actors are, too. From auto-generating phishing emails and malware variants to simulating voices or bypassing MFA with deepfakes, adversaries are industrializing their attacks with the same tools defenders are exploring.

This is why GenAI alone doesn’t cut it. It enhances the SOC — but it doesn’t free it. It still relies on humans to verify outputs, make decisions, and connect the dots. To truly transform security operations, you need more than content generation — you need contextual understanding, autonomous action, and real-time orchestration.

That’s why Torq goes beyond GenAI — combining it with agentic AI, Hyperautomation, and RAG-powered microagents to deliver a self-sustaining, intelligent SOC.

IDC: GenAI is Just the Beginning

A recent IDC Spotlight Report reinforces what leading cybersecurity teams already suspect: Generative AI is only the beginning. The real transformation happens with agentic AI.

Although only 7% of organizations are using agentic AI today, 60% expect it to impact their SOC operations within the next 18 months significantly. The benefits are tangible: organizations embracing this shift are seeing a 50% reduction in mean time to detect (MTTD), automated response for 90% of alerts, and a 35% lower risk of major breaches.

Torq’s HyperSOC platform, powered by agentic microagents, delivers exactly the kind of automation and intelligence IDC highlights — and it’s already available today.

Torq’s Take: From Generative AI to Autonomous Cybersecurity

At Torq, generative AI in cybersecurity was just the beginning. We combine GenAI with agentic AI, Hyperautomation, and Retrieval-Augmented Generatio n (RAG) to create what no one else in the market has: a truly autonomous SOC.

Agentic AI: Thinks Like a Human Analyst

Agentic AI is the brain behind the operation. Torq’s multi-agent system, led by Socrates, understands context, makes decisions, and learns from experience. How?

It uses semantic memory to understand relationships between threats, assets, and users.
It applies episodic memory to recall past incidents and resolutions.
It executes using procedural memory, adapting workflows in real-time based on its growing knowledge base.

Unlike GenAI, which waits for a prompt, agentic AI acts independently. It triages alerts, investigates root causes, and escalates only when necessary — moving SOCs from a human-in-the-loop to a human-on-the-loop approach. That means analysts step in only when they’re truly needed.

Hyperautomation: Machine-Speed Response Across Your Stack

Torq’s Hyperautomation engine seamlessly orchestrates your entire security ecosystem — across EDR, SIEM, IAM, email security, ticketing systems, cloud platforms, and beyond.

These AI-driven workflows:

Automatically isolate compromised endpoints
Revoke credentials and enforce MFA
Trigger alert suppressions and log escalations
Sync case updates across your tools of record

Hyperautomation connects all the dots — transforming detection into response with zero delay.

RAG-Enabled Microagents: Smarter Agents

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) enhances our specialized AI Agents with memory, precision, and real-time data access. Each microagent is trained on a specific domain, like investigation, remediation, or case management, and uses RAG to:

Pull in relevant threat intel, logs, and past incidents
Filter out noise and focus only on actionable data
Generate concise, accurate case summaries and recommendations

Think of them as subject matter experts inside your AI-powered SOC — each one armed with a knowledge base that updates every second.

Defending Against GenAI Security Threats

Adversaries are using GenAI too — for phishing, deepfakes, malware variants, and more. That’s why Torq’s defense stack includes:

Behavioral detection: We spot the telltale signs of GenAI-generated attacks such as weird phrasing, impossible travel, or AI-crafted obfuscation.
Automated response: The second a threat is flagged, Torq acts. Endpoints isolated. Credentials locked. Sessions terminated. Tickets opened. Teams alerted. No hesitation.
Adaptive workflows: Attackers adapt. So do we… automatically. Torq’s workflows update themselves based on real-time threat intel, evolving tactics, and active defense insights. What was a one-off attack yesterday becomes a blocked pattern today.

Go Beyond GenAI Cybersecurity with Torq

Generative AI in cybersecurity got us started — summarizing alerts, drafting playbooks, and answering questions. But Torq takes it further.

With agentic AI, Torq’s platform went from suggestion to autonomous decision-making. With Hyperautomation, Torq executes those decisions instantly across your entire stack. And with RAG-enabled microagents, every move is precise, contextual, and based on real-time intelligence.

That’s how you build a truly autonomous SOC.

Want to go beyond GenAI cybersecurity? Get the AI or Die Manifesto.

Get the Manifesto

Unleash a Multi-SIEM Strategy with Hyperautomation

By Torq

April 3, 2025

5 Minute Read

What is a SIEM?

A SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) is a cybersecurity solution that collects, analyzes, and correlates security data from across an organization’s IT environment to detect threats, monitor activity, and support incident response and compliance. A SIEM can:

Ingest logs from sources like firewalls, endpoints, and applications
Correlate data to spot suspicious activity
Generate alerts for potential threats
Provide dashboards to help analysts investigate

What is SIEM Integration?

SIEM integration means connecting your SIEM to an orchestration and automation layer that amplifies its value without replacing it. Integrating an AI-driven Hyperautomation platform like Torq with your SIEM allows you to automate alerts, enforce policy-driven responses at machine speed, and orchestrate actions across your entire security stack.

The SIEM Struggle is Real

In The Evolution of the Modern Security Data Platform by Francis Odom and Josh Trup, legacy SIEM costs are largely indexed to data volume — meaning the more you ingest, the more you pay. This outdated pricing model is one of the biggest blockers to scaling detection across modern environments.

SIEMs were also built for an on-prem world, not the cloud-native environments we operate in today. As more and more technologies shift to the cloud and SaaS sprawl grows, the volume of logs, events, and alerts increases exponentially.

Top SIEM challenges include:

Excessive operational cost tied to ingestion and retention
Alert fatigue and time-consuming manual triage due to excessive noise
Tool sprawl and integration complexity
Difficulty scaling across hybrid and multi-cloud environments
Log retrieval penalties that make data migration expensive

Yet, despite these issues, most teams are not abandoning their SIEMs. Why? Because the cost and compliance risk of a rip-and-replace approach are even higher. This is where the multi-SIEM strategy emerges.

The Rise of the Multi-SIEM SOCs

Rather than choosing one SIEM to rule them all, forward-thinking SOC teams are embracing a multi-SIEM or hybrid SIEM architecture. Sometimes, this shift is born out of necessity, such as after mergers and acquisitions, where multiple SIEMs are bundled with the deal. At other times, it’s driven by a decline in trust in legacy SIEM innovation following industry shakeups and buyouts.

Legacy SIEMs charge by the byte, and with data volumes exploding, the cost to ingest, store, and retrieve logs has become unsustainable. Instead of a risky rip-and-replace, teams strategically minimize what they send to legacy platforms and route the rest elsewhere.

To solve this, a wave of cloud-native, next-gen SIEM alternatives and data platforms has emerged: ETL orchestrators, cloud security data lakes, and multi-data SIEMs. These tools cleanse, normalize, and route logs more intelligently. Some even decouple analytics from storage to power faster, cheaper real-time detection across hybrid environments.

Even for organizations that keep regulated data on-premises, new logs are increasingly routed to more flexible, lower-cost systems. It’s a smart move — but only if you have a way to connect and orchestrate it all.

Hyperautomation Makes SIEMs Better

Hyperautomation is the key to unlocking the full potential of a modern SIEM strategy. Torq Hyperautomation™ is the AI-driven orchestration layer that sits above your entire SIEM ecosystem. Whether you use one SIEM or several, Torq can connect the dots across tools, teams, and workflows to transform disparate data into actionable intelligence and automated responses.

Once integrated, Torq can:

Run parallel workflows across multiple SIEMs
Automate triage, investigation, and response across platforms
Reduce alert fatigue without disrupting existing operations
Build and deploy SIEM automations with drag-and-drop or natural language
Use Torq HyperSOC™ to auto-generate and resolve 95% of Tier-1 cases with agentic AI

Check Point SIEM and Torq Hyperautomation Integration Story

Check Point’s security team was in alert overload — not due to a lack of tooling, but because their SIEM was generating more noise than their lean SOC could handle. With a 30–40% manpower gap, traditional triage and manual response weren’t sustainable.

Unlike legacy SOAR tools, Torq didn’t require Check Point to overhaul its SIEM or change how data was collected. Instead, Torq integrated directly into its existing SIEM infrastructure, ingesting and analyzing alerts. Within days, Check Point had deployed more than two dozen automated playbooks that operate natively across its security stack.

With Torq’s intelligent orchestration layer acting on SIEM-generated alerts — from triggering MFA to locking suspicious accounts — Check Point transformed a high-volume, high-fatigue environment into a streamlined, autonomous SOC.

“With Torq HyperSOC, we can react automatically to problems before they become security incidents.”
Jonathan Fischbein, CISO, Check Point

Read Check Point’s full SOC transformation story here >

The Future: Autonomous SOCs Powered by AI + SIEM

The SIEM space is evolving fast. But legacy contracts, compliance requirements, and data gravity aren’t going away tomorrow. The future isn’t about replacing your SIEM. It’s about operationalizing it with AI.

With Torq, you can:

Connect any SIEM (or all of them)
Orchestrate security automation across platforms
Transform log overload into real-time response
Move toward an autonomous SOC without sacrificing control

Want to learn more about adopting AI in the SOC? Get the AI or Die manifesto to learn how to think strategically about AI in SecOps — from data privacy to AI hallucinations.

Get the Manifesto

Operationalize Data Security Automation with Cyera and Torq

By Torq

April 1, 2025

4 Minute Read

Once data insights are uncovered, SOC teams must take swift and consistent action. Torq’s platform operationalizes Cyera’s data security intelligence, organizing remediation and policy enforcement with machine-speed efficiency. Together, Cyera and Torq enable SOCs to protect sensitive data and intellectual property quickly, precisely, and accurately.

Solving Data Security’s Greatest Challenges

Today’s landscape has opened a paradox. Organizations rely on data for business to thrive, yet the more data is generated, the harder it is to secure. Sensitive information is being spread everywhere, stored in cloud buckets, shared across SaaS apps, and accessed by a growing number of users and systems. SOC teams are tasked with protecting this sprawling landscape, but the sheer volume of alerts and manual processes makes it nearly impossible to keep up.

Cyera cuts through this noise, giving teams a clear view of what sensitive data exists, where the data lives, who (or what) has access to it, and the risks the data faces. Cyera’s approach is rooted in clarity — mapping the attack surface and delivering insights needed to protect critical assets.

This is where Torq comes in. By integrating with Cyera, Torq automates the actions required to secure data, eliminating inefficiencies and enabling SOC teams to instantly respond to data risks.

Data Security Automation at Work

When Cyera identifies a risk, such as an exposed cloud storage bucket or an anomalous data transfer, Torq acts immediately to execute tailored workflows, automating everything from remediation to stakeholder notifications. Here’s how Cyera and Torq work together:

Comprehensive Data Discovery: Cyera scans your environment to identify sensitive data, classify it, and assess its risk profile.

Real-Time Insights: When Cyera detects an anomaly or identifies a risk, it triggers an event and passes the data insights along to Torq

Automated Orchestration: Torq picks up the baton, automatically launching workflows tailored to the specific alert, whether that’s notifying the right stakeholders, enforcing security controls, or triggering remediation actions.

Continuous Improvement: Cyera and Torq enable SOC teams to refine processes iteratively, reducing noise and improving response efficiency over time.

For example:

Cyera flags a misconfigured cloud storage bucket as containing sensitive PII. Torq automatically executes a remediation workflow, closing the bucket’s exposure and notifying relevant teams.
Cyera identifies an anomalous data transfer from a high-risk location. Torq not only alerts analysts but also enriches the alert with context and executes automated containment actions.

Cyera and Torq: Better Together

What makes Cyera and Torq a revolutionary pair is the shared commitment to scalability, speed, and precision. Cyera’s intelligence provides a clear path forward, while Torq delivers the power to act quickly and precisely.

Everyone in cyber knows speed is no longer an option. Manual processes simply can’t keep pace with the breakneck pace of today’s security landscape. Torq and Cyera together turn hours of work into seconds, automating everything from alert triage to remediation. Cyera provides 95% precision classification, while data security automation workflows from Torq ensure every response is consistent, reliable, and error-free, even under the pressure of an escalating incident.

As your organization grows, so do your risks. Cyera and Torq scale effortlessly, adapting to evolving needs and protecting data across clouds, Saas platforms, and beyond.

Elevate Your SOC

The integration of Cyera and Torq sets the new standard for what SOC teams can achieve with data security automation. By combining Cyera’s data-first approach with Torq’s automation expertise, organizations gain the tools to move faster, act smarter, and confidently secure data.

Request a demo today to see how Cyera and Torq can transform your SOC.

See It in Action

What is Security Automation? A Comprehensive Guide for Modern SOCs

By Torq

March 28, 2025

11 Minute Read

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.

Security automation has become table stakes for SOC teams in today’s connected digital world.

How Security Automation Works

Security automation functions by integrating data from numerous security tools, applying artificial intelligence (AI) for threat detection, and enabling autonomous decision-making for immediate response.

Hyperautomation combines GenAI, agentic AI, and extensive integration capabilities to enable seamless, real-time threat management across all environments, significantly enhancing detection and response capabilities.

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

Benefits of Automating Security

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.

Scalable deployment: 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.

Faster MTTD/MTTR: Reduces alert fatigue by quickly identifying and remediating threats.

Autonomous Case Management: AI-driven automation manages incidents from detection through resolution, eliminating manual bottlenecks.

Full-lifecycle Response: Comprehensive automation enables end-to-end threat handling.

Cybersecurity Automation Types and Tools

Several tool types enhance security automation:

Hyperautomation: Combines advanced AI, machine learning, and integration capabilities, enabling autonomous decision-making and remediation, thus significantly outperforming traditional tools.
XDR (Extended Detection and Response): Provides integrated visibility and automated responses across endpoints, network, and cloud environments.
SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response): Coordinates security tools, automating predefined responses (though now largely replaced by Hyperautomation).
AI Ops (Artificial Intelligence Operations): Uses AI to analyze vast datasets, detect anomalies, and automate responses proactively.

Best Practices for Security Automation

Maximizing security automation ROI requires:

Integration: Ensure seamless integration with existing tools
Customization: Tailor automation workflows to organizational needs
Regular Updates: Continuously update and refine automated systems
User Training: Equip analysts to leverage automated systems fully

Challenges and Limitations of Security Automation

Common challenges around security automation include:

Integration complexity: Difficulty linking legacy tools and data silos.
False positives: High false-positive rates from insufficient intelligence and correlation.
Operational complexity: Challenges in maintaining complex automation rules.

Torq solves these challenges with agentic AI, providing seamless integration, adaptive workflows, and accurate threat response.

Security Automation vs. Security Orchestration and SOAR

It’s easy to 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. We all know this didn’t happen (See: SOAR is Dead Manifesto).

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. SOARs were a foundational tool for many SOC teams but are rapidly being replaced by security automation.

Cybersecurity 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 workflows, but it’s slow, complex, and requires extensive coding. Security Hyperautomation is the next evolution, eliminating inefficiencies with AI and no-code automation. Here’s how they compare.

Security Hyperautomation vs. SOAR

	Security Hyperautomation	SOAR
Architecture	✔ Cloud-native architecture, elastic scaling	X Monolithic architecture, limited scaling
Integrations	✔ Limitless, extensible, continuous API updates	X Limited, inflexible, requires custom dev
Efficiency	✔ Helps manage risks at scale without adding headcount or requiring specialized resources	X 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 rules	X Focuses more on orchestrating responses by security professionals than remediating
AI Capabilities	✔ Built-in AI agents for autonomous remediation, workflow building, data transformation, and more	X Limited or non-existent
Analyst Productivity	✔ High, 10x+ operational boost	X Low, prone to burnout
Overall Effectiveness	✔ Future-proof solution, providing comprehensive security coverage and automation	X 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.

Common Security Automation Use Cases and Examples

Identity and access management (IAM): Automates access control, reducing manual errors.
Threat hunting: Continuously detects and responds to threats proactively.
Cloud security posture management (CSPM): Ensures compliance across cloud environments.
Email security: Automates detection and remediation of phishing and malware.
Incident response: Accelerates and automates alert triage and threat containment.
Vulnerability management: Automates scanning, prioritization, and remediation.

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.

Read their story >

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.

Get Started with Torq Hyperautomation

Choosing the right vendor is crucial — Torq offers unmatched AI capabilities, rapid time-to-value, seamless integration, and true no-code flexibility. See how Torq transforms your SOC into an autonomous security powerhouse.

Want to see how AI-powered security Hyperautomation can transform your SOC?

Get a Demo

How to Turn a SOAR Migration into SOC Transformation

By Torq

March 24, 2025

5 Minute Read

1. Don’t Just Switch Platforms — Optimize

One of the first — and most striking — realizations for companies logging into the Torq platform for the first time is just how easy it is to build SOC workflow automations. For those who previously used code-heavy automation tools and had to manage thousands of lines of Python, Torq’s intuitive, drag-and-drop workflow designer and AI workflow builder is game-changing — enabling security teams to build and deploy Hyperautomated workflows faster than ever before. Users can also test each step of their workflow in real-time, gaining instant feedback and making adjustments on the fly.

With Torq, even customizing integrations with APIs or configuring various data sources becomes accessible to those without advanced dev skills, by using AI agents with expert coding logic and syntax for script writing, CLI, and data manipulation.

When migrating existing workflows to Torq, the ease of use and robust scalability of the platform provides the opportunity to do things that simply weren’t possible with legacy SOAR. To escape tech debt and inefficient and outdated processes, Torq encourages new customers to think beyond a “lift and shift” mentality so they can optimize SOC processes, rather than replicating them exactly as they were. The result is a true SOC transformation, not just a platform change.

The Torq team has seen it all and has a vast store of expertise and experience to recommend best practices for optimizing security processes. Torq Hyperautomation makes it much simpler to combine traditional workbooks into seamless workflows that take advantage of the platform’s strengths, such as AI-driven remediation and dynamic case management.

Most Torq customers are able to consolidate security processes during the migration — achieving the same outcomes with significantly fewer and much more efficient automations.

2. Reclaim Control Over Your Security Stack

During Torq Proof of Concepts (POCs), new users consistently highlight the same recurring challenges with their legacy SOAR platforms: limited integrations and difficulty connecting to essential data within existing tech stacks. This often forced their teams to resort to extensive, time-consuming Python coding, a painful and difficult-to-scale process.

In contrast, Torq enables rapid, limitless integrations. Companies can connect their entire security stack in record time by using AI to generate integrations in seconds, or they can maintain granular control with draggable, low-code or full-code capabilities. Even if your third-party API or data format changes (a recipe for disaster in legacy SOAR platforms), real-time API monitoring ensures none of your integrations are at risk of breaking, so your stack always stays connected for uninterrupted automation.

In one example Mark shared, a customer needing specific SIEM technology functions — which were previously inaccessible through their SOAR platform — achieved their goal in minutes by simply copying an API command into Torq’s intuitive workflow builder canvas, eliminating the need to wait months for a team to develop custom code to create the connection.

3. Accelerate Adoption and Time-to-Value

“Whenever we talk to customers or to the folks that are POCing Torq and getting into the platform for the first time, there’s one word that comes up in every single engagement: intuitive.”

– Mark Carosella, Sales Engineering Manager, Torq

Building security automation workflows in Torq’s drag-and-drop and AI-assisted interface is highly intuitive, which means teams quickly grasp the fundamentals to get up and running during onboarding. Mark shared that within a day or two, new users are often independently building custom automation workflows. This can feel like a major “aha” moment for users who came in with the perception of automation as a complex, code-heavy experience in legacy SOAR platforms.

One Torq user shared, “My favorite thing about Torq is that concepts go from my head to a working reality in just a few hours, instead of a few weeks, largely in part to the no-code functionality.”

This ease of use empowers any user, regardless of their coding skills, to rapidly implement workflows and adapt their security operations, accelerating time to value.

Transform Your SOC: Get the SOAR Migration Guide

If you’re ready to finally pull the plug on your SOAR, get the Kill Your SOAR Migration Guide to plan ahead. It covers the big picture of what you need to know going into a migration, plus a migration success story from a leading security company, advice from a SOC manager who made the switch, and the top 3 POC use cases.

With Torq, your migration isn’t just about switching platforms — it’s an opportunity to transform your security operations.

Get the Guide

Ready for SOC transformation? Get the Kill Your SOAR migration guide.

SANS Survey: 5 Security Challenges Keeping SOCs in the Dark

By Torq

March 20, 2025

6 Minute Read

The 2024 SANS Detection and Response Survey sheds new light on some all-too-familiar security challenges: security operations teams are overwhelmed with alerts, struggling to respond fast enough, and tracking the wrong KPIs. Sure, automation adoption is increasing (64% of organizations now leverage it in some capacity), but most SecOps teams are still operating in slow, reactive, and heavily manual environments.

Five Security Challenges Faced by SecOps Teams

1. Security teams are stuck in semi-automation mode.

Most security operations teams think they have automated response mechanisms, but they’re really just babysitting inefficient, semi-automated workflows. The SANS Survey data shows that while 64% of teams have automated response mechanisms in place, less than a quarter have fully automated their processes. That means the vast majority still rely on analysts to manually intervene and execute responses.

2. Slow response times are leaving organizations exposed.

Speed matters. Attackers are betting you’ll take a while to respond to threats. SANS found that a whopping 32.8% of teams take hours to respond to threats, and 41.4% say they respond within minutes. In today’s reality, even minutes can be too slow. Recent data shows that lateral movement breakout times dropped from 62 minutes to 48 minutes, with the fastest recorded breakout happening in just 51 seconds. If a response takes more than a minute, the damage may already be done.

3. Alert fatigue and data overwhelm are killing security team productivity.

It’s loud in the SOC. More than half of security teams say false positives are a huge problem, and 62.5% are overwhelmed by sheer data volume. Every second spent triaging junk alerts is a second not spent investigating real threats — meaning SOCs are burning through their most precious and expensive resource: human focus. Analysts’ expertise is critical for threat investigation and response, yet most of their time is wasted manually sorting through thousands of low-value alerts that should’ve been filtered out in the first place. This wastes time, burns out analysts, and, worst of all, lets real threats slip through.

4. Security teams are still tracking the wrong KPIs.

The most surprising part of the survey responses is that more than 50% of security teams aren’t even tracking KPIs like Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR). Instead, they’re tracking vanity metrics like the number of incidents detected — or, worse, they don’t have enough data to measure their own efficiency. Without the right data, SOC teams cannot optimize performance or reduce response times.

5. SOAR is holding teams back.

SOAR was supposed to be the answer to security automation… right? The majority of respondents use SOAR for threat response, but half still rely on manually running commands to respond to threats. This proves what we at Torq already know: SOAR hasn’t lived up to its promise. SOAR platforms were supposed to automate security workflows, but most teams still struggle with slow response times, rigid playbooks, and high maintenance overhead.

The Fix: An Autonomous SOC Powered by AI-Driven Hyperautomation

The answer to these existential security challenges isn’t manually tuning SOAR, tweaking detection rules hoping something works, or hiring more analysts (Be real: Where are you even finding them? The SANS Survey found the majority of security teams struggle with lack of skilled personnel). The real fix is an autonomous SOC powered by AI-driven Hyperautomation: a SOC that invests in AI and automation to eliminate inefficiencies, take action at machine speed, and, ultimately, shorten response times.

Comparison table showing how an autonomous SOC fixes 5 key security challenges.

1. Go autonomous.

Ditch the scripts, stop the manual tuning, and let AI take over. An autonomous SOC removes the need for engineers to build, maintain, and tweak workflows with extensive coding. Instead, teams can simply describe a workflow, use case, or outcome using natural language to guide agentic AI as it implements workflows to secure the organization faster than ever before. An autonomous SOC can handle 95% of Tier-1 cases — allowing security teams to focus on critical, high-impact threats, rather than babysitting outdated playbooks or struggling with the limitations of rigid SOAR architectures.

“With Torq Agentic AI, the answer is yes to questions such as: Are analysts happier? Are they sticking around? Do they have time to focus on more interesting and complex investigations? Are MTTM and MTTR lower? Torq Agentic AI extends and enhances our team so it can make better decisions more quickly — resulting in stronger security all around.”

– Mick Leach, Field CISO, Abnormal Security

2. Slash response time.

With SOC automation, alerts don’t sit in a queue waiting for an analyst to take action. AI-driven Hyperautomation instantly takes action to investigate alerts, enrich cases, and contain threats — isolating infected endpoints, disabling compromised accounts, and blocking malicious infrastructure before damage is done. Unlike SOAR’s static playbooks, an autonomous SOC leverages AI to tirelessly and intelligently analyze and remediate massive volumes of security incidents, shrinking response times from hours to seconds.

3. Eliminate alert fatigue.

AI Agents don’t just process alerts — they triage and prioritize them. AI-powered SOCs use sophisticated planning and contextual reasoning to filter out low-fidelity alerts, suppress false positives, and escalate only the alerts that matter. Analysts no longer have to sift through thousands of useless alerts — AI handles the noise so teams can focus on critical security risks.

4. Track the right KPIs.

An autonomous SOC should be able to measure security response and provide visibility into operations. Instead of requiring analysts to manually track and compile data, AI can capture and log detection times, response actions, and remediation speeds automatically. SOC leaders finally get a clear picture of what’s working, where bottlenecks exist, and what to optimize.

5. SOAR is dead. Ditch it.

SOAR is simply too slow, rigid, and high-maintenance to keep up with modern SOC demands. An autonomous SOC doesn’t rely on pre-scripted playbooks — it builds, executes, and adapts automation dynamically, all in natural language. With AI-driven Hyperautomation, security teams move faster than attackers, not the other way around. See the difference.

It’s time to move past the limitations of SOAR and slow, reactive security operations. Take your SOC autonomous — learn how easy it is to switch to AI-driven Hyperautomation from Torq.

Get the SOAR Migration Guide

Contents

What Is a Cyberattack?

12 Types Cyberattacks — and How to Stop Them with Hyperautomation

1. Phishing & Spear Phishing

2. Denial-of-Service (DoS & DDoS)

3. Spoofing

4. Code Injections

5. Password Attacks

6. Insider Threats

7. Supply Chain Attacks

8. Social Engineering Attacks

9. Zero-Day Exploits

10. Malware

11. Ransomware

12. AI-Powered Attacks

How to Protect Against Cyberattacks

Combatting Cyberattacks with Hyperautomation

Stay Ahead of Cyber Threats with Torq Hyperautomation

Related Articles

90 Days to SOC Autonomy: How Torq Customers Get There

Torq for MDRs: Increase Margin and Onboard Customers Faster

The Cybersecurity Lifecycle: How Torq Automates Detection, Response, and Recovery

Contents

What is a Security Incident? (And Why Categorization Matters)

Security Incident vs. Security Event

Examples of Security Incidents

What are the Two Types of Security Incidents?

What is an Information Security Incident?

Why Categorizing Incidents is Critical for Consistent Response and Automation

The 6 Most Common Security Incident Categories In Enterprise Environments — and How to Automate Them

1. Malware and Ransomware

2. Phishing and Social Engineering

3. Unauthorized Access and Privilege Misuse

4. Insider Threats (Accidental and Malicious)

5. Denial-of-Service (DoS/DDoS)

6. Data Breaches and Exfiltration

How Subcategories and Signals Drive Better Detection

Cybersecurity Incident Subcategories That Add Granularity

Detection Cues: Precursors vs. Indicators

Security Incident Categorization Best Practices

Common Challenges in Security Incident Categorization

Categorization Is the First Step Toward Autonomous SOCs

FAQs

Related Articles

90 Days to SOC Autonomy: How Torq Customers Get There

Torq for MDRs: Increase Margin and Onboard Customers Faster

The Cybersecurity Lifecycle: How Torq Automates Detection, Response, and Recovery

Contents

A Cyber Crisis Simulation Unfolds

1. Detecting the Impossible Alert

2. Confronting the Extortion

3. Stopping Ransomware Escalation

Minimal Damage, Maximum Defense

Building Cyber Resilience through Proactive Simulation

Related Articles

90 Days to SOC Autonomy: How Torq Customers Get There

Torq for MDRs: Increase Margin and Onboard Customers Faster

The Cybersecurity Lifecycle: How Torq Automates Detection, Response, and Recovery

Contents

What is a Security Operations Center (SOC) Framework?

The Three Core Components of a SOC Framework

Examples of SOC Frameworks

Benefits of Implementing a SOC Framework

Key Considerations for SOC Framework Success

Rebuilding the SOC for the Cloud-First Era

Torq’s Role in the Modern SOC: Real Automation for Real-World Demands

Applying MITRE ATT&CK to Strengthen Detection and Response

Using MITRE D3FEND to Close Gaps and Validate Controls

How Modern SOCs Operationalize MITRE Frameworks

Scaling Smarter: Best Practices for High-Performance SOCs

Build a SOC Framework That Adapts as Fast as Threats Do

Related Articles

90 Days to SOC Autonomy: How Torq Customers Get There

Torq for MDRs: Increase Margin and Onboard Customers Faster

The Cybersecurity Lifecycle: How Torq Automates Detection, Response, and Recovery

Contents

How Can Generative AI Be Used in Cybersecurity?

Challenges of Using Generative AI Alone

IDC: GenAI is Just the Beginning

Torq’s Take: From Generative AI to Autonomous Cybersecurity