Swimlane’s SOAR solution is patented for its many security posture combinations and use cases
Swimlane, a leader in security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR), announced it has been granted US Patent 10,552,615, “Threat Response Systems and Methods,” by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
The patent validates Swimlane’s dynamic approach to using automation and orchestration for automated threat response, as well as addressing any unique security problem an organization may face.
With infinite security posture combinations and use cases, Swimlane’s SOAR solution was built from the ground up to transform an analyst’s critical day-to-day responsibilities from insurmountable to exciting and effective.
“Organizations are coming to the realization that staffing up to solve for the overwhelming amount of security and intelligence data they see daily is an unsustainable path. Applying automation broadly across every security use case is the only way organizations will be able to battle technology sprawl and protect their rapidly expanding attack surface,” says Cody Cornell, CEO of Swimlane and patent co-inventor.
“Each organization has its own adversaries, detection technologies, partners and suppliers, regulatory compliance requirements, and general internal policies and procedures. And with each inevitably new technology innovation comes new monitoring and management tools that need to be supported.
“Swimlane’s mission is to solve the existential problems facing security operations through a unified defense platform that enables individuals and teams to do more with less.”
According to Gartner’s 2019 Market Guide for Security Orchestration, Automation and Response Solutions, “by year-end 2022, 30% of organizations with a security team larger than five people will leverage SOAR tools in their security operations, up from less than 5% today.”
This is no surprise to anyone working in a security operations center (SOC), where analysts struggle to keep up with today’s evolving threat landscape and growing skills shortage all while facing the expectation of Fortune 500 capabilities and breach protection without Fortune 500 resources.
Validated by this new patent, Swimlane stands out in the market for enabling organizations to automate incident response processes by orchestrating their existing personnel, processes and technologies.
Rather than requiring organizations to conform to a set of specific workflows, this capability opens up the potential for nearly endless SOAR use cases for every unique business and SOC.
Swimlane Director of Engineering and patent co-inventor Brant Wheeler adds, “No organization can staff an expert for every security scenario, but breaches reported in the news are destructive to small and large business alike.
“This patent demonstrates Swimlane’s ability to help organizations accomplish higher efficacy with their existing people, incident response processes and technologies. For Swimlane, improving the day-to-day lives of analysts is critical.
“If analysts are forced to prioritize their to-do lists instead of being enabled to get through all of the work, organizations will never reach their potential for stronger security.”
A typical analyst without SOAR tools will spend as much as 70% of their time processing false positives, creating tickets and sending emails, and only 10% monitoring system events and alerts, 10% addressing information assurance vulnerability alerts and 10% researching new threats and attack methods.
In stark contrast, a Swimlane-enabled analyst is able to spend 30% of their time researching new threats and attack methods, 40% engaging in proactive activities to increase the security posture of their organization, 20% responding to security incidents, and 10% growing skills and qualifications.
Analysts who work in SOCs bolstered by SOAR are more effective and more satisfied with their jobs, leading to fewer instances of burnout and less turnover for the organization.