Automation and SOAR Playbooks

Purpose and Scope

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms enable teams to automate repetitive tasks and orchestrate complex response workflows. This playbook covers designing effective playbooks that reduce response times while maintaining analyst oversight.

Prerequisites

• SOAR platform: Splunk SOAR, Palo Alto XSOAR, Microsoft Sentinel Automation, Tines, or similar
• Documented processes: Written SOPs for tasks to automate
• API access: Integrations with SIEM, EDR, TI platforms, ticketing systems
• Analyst input: Understanding of current manual workflows and pain points

Automation Goals

Effective automation should:

• Reduce mean time to respond (MTTR)
• Eliminate repetitive manual tasks
• Ensure consistent response actions
• Free analysts for higher value work
• Scale response capacity without adding headcount

Automation Maturity Levels

Level 1: Enrichment

Automate context gathering:

• Query threat intelligence for IOCs
• Look up user and asset details
• Pull related alerts and events
• Check blocklist status

Level 2: Triage

Automate initial assessment:

• Apply decision logic to classify alerts
• Route alerts to appropriate queues
• Auto close known false positives
• Escalate high priority alerts

Level 3: Response

Automate containment actions:

• Isolate endpoints
• Block indicators at perimeter
• Disable user accounts
• Quarantine email messages

Level 4: Orchestration

Coordinate complex multi step workflows:

• End to end incident handling
• Cross platform response coordination
• Automated reporting and notification
• Post incident cleanup

Playbook Design Principles

Start with Manual Processes

• Document existing SOPs before automating
• Identify decision points and branching logic
• Understand edge cases and exceptions
• Validate the manual process works correctly

Design for Human Oversight

• Include approval gates for high impact actions
• Provide clear status visibility
• Enable manual intervention at any point
• Log all actions for audit trail

Handle Failures Gracefully

• Implement error handling for API failures
• Set timeouts for long running tasks
• Notify analysts when automation fails
• Avoid cascading failures

Test Thoroughly

• Test with realistic data in a safe environment
• Validate edge cases and error conditions
• Run in monitoring mode before enabling actions
• Conduct regular playbook reviews

Common Playbook Patterns

Phishing Response

1. Extract indicators from reported email (sender, URLs, attachments)
2. Enrich indicators against TI sources
3. Check if other users received the same message
4. Quarantine email from all mailboxes
5. Block sender and URLs
6. Notify affected users
7. Create ticket and documentation

Malware Alert Triage

1. Gather alert details and affected endpoint
2. Enrich file hash against TI and AV
3. Pull process tree and command line from EDR
4. Check if file is on allowlist
5. If malicious: isolate endpoint, create ticket, notify analyst
6. If benign: close alert, update allowlist if needed

Suspicious Login Response

1. Extract login details (user, source IP, location)
2. Check IP reputation and geolocation
3. Compare to user's normal login patterns
4. Check for impossible travel
5. If suspicious: prompt for MFA, notify user, create ticket
6. If high confidence malicious: disable account, revoke sessions

IOC Blocking

1. Receive IOC from analyst or TI feed
2. Validate IOC format and type
3. Check if already blocked
4. Add to appropriate blocklist (firewall, proxy, EDR)
5. Search for historical hits on IOC
6. Document and confirm completion

Integration Best Practices

API Design

• Use dedicated service accounts with minimal permissions
• Implement rate limiting to avoid overwhelming systems
• Handle authentication token refresh
• Validate inputs before sending to APIs

Data Handling

• Sanitize and validate all inputs
• Protect sensitive data in transit and storage
• Avoid logging credentials or sensitive PII
• Implement data retention policies

Measuring Automation Effectiveness

• MTTR reduction: Time savings per automated playbook
• Volume handled: Alerts processed without manual intervention
• Accuracy: True positive rate of automated decisions
• Analyst satisfaction: Reduction in toil, time for proactive work
• Error rate: Playbook failures and manual interventions required

Common Pitfalls

• Automating bad processes: Fix the process before automating
• Over automation: Not all tasks should be automated
• Insufficient testing: Leads to unintended consequences
• No human oversight: Critical actions need approval gates
• Scope creep: Start simple and iterate

Response Actions

• Start with high volume, low complexity use cases
• Build playbook library incrementally
• Collect metrics to demonstrate value
• Iterate based on analyst feedback
• Document and share playbook logic

References

• NIST SP 800-61: Computer Security Incident Handling Guide
• CISA Automated Indicator Sharing: cisa.gov/ais
• Splunk SOAR: Splunk documentation
• Palo Alto XSOAR: Palo Alto documentation