SOC as a Service

SOC as a Service is an outsourced 24/7/365 cybersecurity monitoring service — instead of building your own Security Operations Center (nFlo estimate for Poland: about €0.47-0.95 million per year for analysts on three shifts and a SIEM/SOAR platform), you subscribe to a provider that delivers continuous threat detection and incident response on top of their tooling. Typical service includes log collection, SIEM correlation, EDR/XDR-based detection, threat hunting, alert triage, incident response support, and monthly reporting. Pricing is usually per endpoint or per user per month, making it accessible to organisations of any size.

Three related but distinct outsourced security models: (1) **MSSP (Managed Security Service Provider)** — older model, typically focused on managing tools (firewalls, antivirus) for the customer; alert-driven, lower-touch, often offshore SOC, (2) **MDR (Managed Detection and Response)** — modern model focused on outcomes (detect and respond to threats), uses vendor's own platform (CrowdStrike Falcon Complete, SentinelOne Vigilance, Sophos MDR), faster response, more proactive threat hunting, (3) **SOC as a Service / MXDR** — full SOC capabilities delivered as a service, vendor-agnostic, integrates customer's existing tools or provides them, includes SIEM/SOAR/EDR, custom playbooks, and detailed reporting. The lines blur — most modern providers position themselves between MDR and SOC-as-a-Service.

Pricing depends on the number of endpoints, log volume (GB/day), event sources, the agreed SLA level and compliance requirements. In nFlo pricing, SOC as a Service costs from about €1,900 net per month for smaller organizations with basic monitoring, about €3,500-14,000 net per month for mid-sized and large companies with full SIEM + SOAR and threat hunting, and about €19,000 net per month or more with a dedicated team. For comparison, an in-house 24/7 SOC costs about €0.47-0.95 million per year in Poland (nFlo estimate; 9-15 FTE over three shifts plus a SIEM/SOAR platform). Amounts converted from PLN at the nFlo reference rate of 4.25 PLN/EUR. SOC-as-a-Service reaches 24/7 coverage in weeks instead of years.

Standard scope: (1) **24/7/365 monitoring** of customer's environment by qualified analysts, (2) **Log collection and SIEM correlation** (cloud-native or customer-deployed), (3) **EDR/XDR coverage** for endpoints (CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Defender, Sophos), (4) **Threat hunting** — proactive search for indicators of compromise that automated detections miss, (5) **Incident response** support — playbooks, containment guidance, sometimes on-site IR for major incidents (extra fee), (6) **Threat intelligence** integration with global feeds (Mandiant, Recorded Future, vendor-native), (7) **Compliance reporting** — NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS evidence packages, (8) **Monthly business reviews** with metrics (MTTD, MTTR, alerts handled, threats blocked).

SOC-as-a-Service makes sense when: (1) you need 24/7 coverage but lack budget for 9-15 FTE over three shifts (nFlo estimate), (2) you need to comply with NIS2/DORA quickly (months, not years), (3) you don't have access to qualified SOC talent in your region, (4) your environment is mid-size (50-2000 endpoints) where in-house cost is hard to justify, (5) you need access to specialised threat intelligence and tooling. **In-house SOC** makes sense when: you're a large enterprise (5000+ endpoints), have very specific industry/regulatory needs, deep customisation requirements, or strategic concerns about data leaving your control. Many large enterprises run a hybrid: in-house Tier 1 + outsourced Tier 2/3, or in-house core + outsourced specific areas (cloud, OT).

Both regulations effectively mandate 24/7 monitoring and rapid incident response: (1) **NIS2** (Article 21) requires 'incident handling' and continuous monitoring as basic risk management measures for essential and important entities — penalties up to €10M/2% turnover, (2) **DORA** (Articles 17-23) for financial entities requires ICT incident detection, logging, classification and three-stage reporting (24h/72h/1 month) — penalties set under national law, in Poland up to PLN 20,869,500 or 10% of total annual revenue (Art. 18zm of the Act on Financial Market Supervision). In-house SOC takes 12-18 months to reach maturity (nFlo estimate); SOC-as-a-Service starts in about 2 weeks (nFlo onboarding schedule), making it the standard path for organisations needing fast NIS2 or DORA compliance.

By scope and approach: (1) **Vendor-native MDR** — CrowdStrike Falcon Complete, SentinelOne Vigilance, Microsoft Defender Experts, Sophos MDR — best when you've standardised on a single security stack, (2) **Specialist MDR providers** — Arctic Wolf, eSentire, Red Canary, Expel — vendor-agnostic, strong analyst expertise, (3) **Big tech consultancies** — Deloitte SOC, Accenture, IBM Security — comprehensive but higher cost, (4) **Local/regional specialists** (incl. nFlo for the Polish market) — combine local language, regulatory expertise, faster onboarding and on-site support. Selection criteria: response SLA, transparency of analyst tier, technology stack, threat intel sources, regulatory expertise, references in your sector.