SIEM Vs SOAR – What’s the Difference?
In today’s article we break down some of the key differences between SIEM and SOAR and discuss the importance of incorporating these critical elements into your organisations cybersecurity strategy.
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Both essential elements of modern cybersecurity, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) work in tandem to strengthen security operations. Although they work together, each serves a distinct purpose. Understanding the differences is crucial for building an efficient and responsive security operations center (SOC). So, what is the difference between SIEM and SOAR?
SIEM is a technology that focuses on monitoring and detection by collecting data generated throughout an organisation’s IT infrastructure, including servers, applications, firewalls, and endpoints. It then analyses the data in real-time to identify any unusual trends or malicious activity and generates alerts to help security teams detect and investigate threats quickly and efficiently. Reports and visualisations then display a comprehensive view of the business’ security posture to provide security teams with the insights needed to detect and prevent unauthorised activities.
SOAR, on the other hand, helps businesses coordinate and automate their response to cybersecurity incidents. By eliminating the need for manual steps, SOAR technologies help organisations act as quickly as possible when it comes to threat detection and response. Automation capabilities can carry out a wide range of security tasks including managing user access, blocking IP addresses or quarantining endpoints to ensure threats are dealt with fast, safeguarding business systems.
SIEM and SOAR ultimately handle different aspects of cybersecurity, however, they are often used in tandem, with SIEM software detecting threats and sending alerts, while the SOAR platform takes those alerts and automates the appropriate responses. For example, if a SIEM detects suspicious login activity, the SOAR system can automatically lock the affected account, initiate a ticket, and notify the security team, all within seconds. Using these tools together enables businesses to form a strong foundation for a modern and proactive cyber strategy. One that helps reduce response times, minimise manual security processes, and allows them to handle the growing volume of cyber threats more effectively.
Think of a SIEM solution as the receptionist and security desk in your office building - monitoring who comes in, checking badges, and flagging anything unusual - they are the eyes and ears of all events that occur and will make note of all events based on the rules you set. SOAR is the buildings’ automated response system — if someone or something tries to conduct unauthorised activity it reacts according to the rules the security desk set based on threat level and might locks the doors, alert the security team, send an email to management, or any other activity to reduce the chance of harm. All of these actions are recorded, all in real time. One observes and reports, the other responds and acts.
| SIEM | SOAR | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Function | Collects, aggregates, and analyses security data from multiple sources. | Automates and coordinates incident response actions across tools and teams. |
| Focus Area | Threat detection, log management, compliance reporting | Incident response, automation, and workflow orchestration |
| Automation | Limited automation - primarily alerting and rule-based correlation. | Advanced automation - automated playbooks, workflows, and responses. |
| Data Handling | Ingests and correlates log/event data from across the environment. | Uses alerts/data, often from SIEM, to trigger automated responses. |
One tool that can help businesses integrate SIEM and SOAR capabilities is Microsoft Sentinel.
What is Microsoft Sentinel?
Previously Azure Sentinel, Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native solution that combines SIEM and SOAR technology to transform cybersecurity management. Sentinel collects and analyses data at scale to detect threats in real-time and provide both manual and automated response options to streamline incident management. The solution’s core functionality can be broken down into four main areas.
1 – Data Collection
Sentinel enhances visibility across critical business systems by aggregating log data and event signals from users, applications and infrastructure. These signals record activity like login attempts, file access and unusual network traffic to identify unusual or malicious activity early.
2 – Real-Time Analytics and Threat Detection
Sentinel then uses various methods to continuously analyse data to identify potential threats. Machine learning models are used to flag anomalies that don’t match the typical patterns of user or system behaviour. Other methods include leveraging user and entity behaviour analytics (UEBA) to track unusual activity like a user logging on at unusual hours or accessing sensitive files they have not accessed before.
3- Incident Management
When an alert is triggered, Sentinel doesn’t treat it as an isolated case. Instead, it leverages entity correlation to automatically group related alerts into a single incident. This approach helps minimise alert fatigue and provides a cohesive view of the threat, detailing what occurred, where, when, and who was involved.
Investigations are carried out through the Microsoft Defender portal, which serves as the central hub for analysing and managing incidents across the Microsoft security ecosystem. From this portal, security teams can:
Reconstruct the entire timeline of an incident.
Navigate between related entities like users, devices, IP addresses, and files, to map out potentially threatening actions.
Perform in-depth log analysis using Kusto Query Language (KQL) for customised threat detection and hunting.
Collaborate with colleagues via built-in Microsoft Teams integration.
This investigation process delivers the necessary context for making informed decisions during active threats, as well as creating a well-documented trail for compliance and post-incident review.
4 – Automated and Manual Response
Microsoft Sentinel enables both manual responses and automated workflows for handling security incidents by integrating with Azure Logic Apps. This integration powers Sentinel’s Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) capabilities. At the core of this automation is a playbook, which is a predefined set of actions that can be triggered automatically based on specific detection rules or incident classifications. These playbooks can be built from Microsoft’s templates or tailored to match your organisation’s specific response procedures, IT environment, and compliance requirements. For example, if Sentinel identifies unusual login activity from a privileged user account, a playbook could automatically carry out actions like disabling the user account, blocking the originating IP address at the firewall or notifying the Security Operations Centre (SOC) via Teams or email.
By combining the power of SIEM and SOAR in this way, Microsoft Sentinel provides a unified security operations platform that enables businesses to identify threats and deploy remediation measures as quickly as possible, so your business data remains protected and secure.
If you would like to learn more about Microsoft Sentinel, get in touch with one of our cybersecurity specialists today.
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