SIEM vs SOAR, What’s the Difference?
These two security tools are often lumped together, how do they stack up?
The Problem
Before we dig into the differences between these two tools, its important to build a condensed security lexicon and understanding of the shared problem that these two different, often overlapping, classes of tools are trying to solve.
Generally, both Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) tools aim to tackle the same problem, which is generally stated as handling the overabundance of security-related information and events that modern organizations generate.
The management and reaction to these events typically fall to the Security Operations (SecOps) team working in a Security Operations Center (SOC). While management of a few streams of data could conceivably be managed manually by a SecOps team, as data streams continue to grow, and InfoSec personal such as SOC Analysts grow in demand, the possibility to manage this data manually becomes more and more remote.