At a high level, the SOC's core mission remains to help the enterprise manage cyber risk, but what has changed is the sophistication of cyber threats and the mechanics of the SOC to operate. To successfully protect and respond to threats, SOCs need deep visibility into organization activity and automate key but repetitive functions while freeing analysts to focus on more valuable functions such as threat hunting and vulnerability management.

Hybrid work, which involves splitting the working week between in-office and remote work time, is the new normal that many companies have been adapting to after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis forced them to work remotely to continue providing services. A recent study indicates that, in fact, 58% of companies have been encouraged to promote a hybrid return to the office. In addition, it estimates that 48% of employees will be following a hybrid or remote model in the next two years.

As managed service providers (MSPs) at the helm of keeping organizations secure, taking proactive steps toward cyber hygiene is more vital now than ever. Maintaining an up-to-date and healthy environment is impossible without regularly updating software agents. Updating these tools improves operational efficiency, reduces IT ticket volume, and defends against known or potential new vulnerabilities in your clients' systems.

We have been talking about eXtended Detection and Response (XDR) for some years now, but despite being a buzzword in the industry, a fundamental question remains: what are we really talking about here? According to Gartner, which first defined the term in 2020, XDR is a vendor-specific threat detection and incident response tool that natively integrates multiple security products into a cohesive security operations system.

Global IT spending will reach $4.5 trillion this year, according to Gartner's latest forecast. While the economic climate is negatively impacting consumer markets, companies have reordered their priorities and continue to increase spending on digital business initiatives, despite the global economic slowdown. IT budgets started to rise in the third quarter of 2022 when Gartner reported that 76% of CIOs stated that their budgets had grown compared to the previous quarter.