If You Deploy SOAR, Then What? No Real Automated Response If It Can’t Act

By PLURA

📉 SOAR solutions typically receive security events from SIEM and then carry out automated responses. Yet many organizations report: “We deployed SOAR but can’t really do automated response.”

The main reason is that SOAR does not operate in isolation. It completely depends on SIEM’s detection results—and if your SIEM environment still suffers from “incomplete log collection and analysis,” you can’t realistically expect accurate automatic responses from SOAR.

This article references “If You Deploy SIEM, Then What?” and outlines the difficulties in implementing SOAR—as well as the root causes behind them.

  • SOAR: Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response
  • SIEM: Security Information and Event Management

why_soar_always_fails

1. Why Does SOAR Depend on SIEM?

(1) The Basic SOAR Mechanism

  • SOAR usually receives security events from SIEM or other monitoring solutions.

  • It uses predefined workflows or automation scripts to:

    • e.g., block malicious IPs, temporarily disable related accounts, create tickets, etc.

  • SOAR performs immediate or semi-automatic incident response.

(2) What if “Bad Events” Come In?

  • If the SIEM produces too many false positives or misses real threats,

  • SOAR will act on “incorrect events” or fail to see critical incidents at all:

    • Possibly never triggering a response, or
    • Blocking/penalizing the wrong target.

  • Hence, SOAR accuracy depends on SIEM detection accuracy.

(3) If SIEM Is Weak, Automated Response Is Just a Pipe Dream

  • A flawed SIEM means incomplete event data or unreliable detection.

  • Any SOAR built on top of that will be forced to automate on “bad data,” leading to:

    • More risk, e.g. unneeded blocks or missed actual attacks.

  • ⚡Therefore, many security pros see implementing SOAR without a stable SIEM as premature.

2. Why SOAR Often Can’t “Auto-Respond”

People assume “SOAR → automatic response,” but in many cases it fails to operate properly. The root causes include:

(1) SIEM’s Log Collection & Analysis Limitations

  • SIEM generally relies on basic access logs or standard event logs.

  • If you can’t capture key attack data (request body, response body):

    • SQL injection, data exfiltration, etc. are undetectable.

  • Without adequate true positives from SIEM, there’s no basis for SOAR to automatically block or respond.

(2) No Attack Scenario Rules → No Automated Responses

  • For SOAR to decide “This event is dangerous, let’s automate a response,”

    • A rule must confirm that the event is truly malicious.

  • Many SIEM deployments have incomplete attack pattern definitions or rely on poorly tuned rules, resulting in difficulty separating false positives from real threats.

  • In short: “No rules or signatures = no job” for SOAR.

(3) Lacking Skilled Staff & Processes → Automation Still Needs People

  • Despite the promise of “automation,” SOAR deployment still requires:

    • Security teams to carefully distinguish false positives.

  • If a SIEM generates too many false positives, SOAR ends up wasting resources on unnecessary response flows.

  • ✅ Ultimately, “proper logs + accurate rules + qualified personnel” are prerequisites. Without these, SOAR is only “automated response” in name but never realistically executes it.

Sample Diagram: SIEM ↔ SOAR ↔ WAF Integration

sequenceDiagram
    participant SIEM as SIEM
    participant SOAR as SOAR
    participant WAF as WAF

    Note over SIEM: 1. SIEM detects suspicious log events
    SIEM ->> SIEM: Log analysis & threat detection
    
    Note over SIEM,SOAR: 2. SIEM sends security alerts to SOAR
    SIEM ->> SOAR: Suspicious Event Alert

    Note over SOAR: 3. SOAR performs event correlation/analysis
    SOAR ->> SOAR: Rule / Workflow execution
    
    Note over SOAR,WAF: 4. SOAR commands WAF to block
    SOAR ->> WAF: Issue Block Request

    Note over WAF: 5. WAF blocks/drops malicious traffic
    WAF ->> WAF: Block/Drop Malicious Traffic
    
    Note over WAF,SOAR: 6. WAF notifies SOAR of block result
    WAF ->> SOAR: Block Confirmation
    
    Note over SOAR,SIEM: 7. SOAR logs block result in SIEM
    SOAR ->> SIEM: Update Event Status

SOAR, SIEM & WAF Implementation Flow

3. How “SIEM Problems” Become “SOAR Problems”

As explained in the linked article, the biggest SIEM issue is “inadequate log collection and lack of analysis staff.”

SIEM: Then What? If Log Collection & Analysis Don’t Work

Those same points apply to SOAR:

  1. Incomplete log collection → insufficient detection events → SOAR lacks events to respond to.
  2. Limited detection rules & analysis expertise → low confidence in SIEM alerts → SOAR auto-response can block legitimate traffic too often.
  3. Understaffed ops → can’t even keep up with SIEM’s false positives → Hard to handle false positives automatically in SOAR → eventually neglected.

✅ Inevitably, without proper SIEM operations, SOAR can’t reliably provide automated response.

4. “If You Deploy SOAR, Then What?”—Answering the Question

(1) Address “Auto-Detection” Before “Auto-Response”

  • SOAR is about “auto-detect → auto-respond” flow.

  • But robust detection must come from SIEM first, ensuring that “If this event fires, we can safely block.”

  • So, before implementing SOAR, invest in SIEM to improve:

    • Log coverage,
    • Detection rules,
    • Trained analysts, etc.

(2) Build SIEM Operational Maturity First

  • Once SIEM operations are stable and false positives are minimal,

    • You can trust that “This event definitely deserves automated response.”

  • Deploying SOAR prematurely leads to:

    • Over-blocking that might disrupt business,
    • Forcing “semi-automated” usage of SOAR, diminishing ROI.

(3) “It’s Never Too Late to Perfect SIEM, Then Add SOAR”

  • In practice, you refine SIEM operations for an extended period:

    • Tuning rules, filtering benign events, reducing false positives, etc.

  • Only when SIEM produces a “certain threshold of accurate detections”

    • Introducing SOAR is absolutely viable.

  • 💡 That way, you get real automation and better returns on your investment.

5. When Should You Deploy SOAR?

  1. Check If You Already Have Enough Good SIEM Alerts

    • Can your system handle expanded log ingestion without collapsing?
    • Is the true-positive rate high enough?
    • Do you have staff capable of monitoring/improving detection metrics?

  2. Assess the Maturity of Your Response Processes

    • Is there a well-defined approach for each attack type?
    • If you know “which actions” to take for each event, you can automate them in SOAR.

  3. Perform a Thorough Risk Assessment of Potential Business Impact

    • Could false positives block legitimate users?
    • Are there steps needing manual review before fully automated response?

Ensuring these are “checked” and reasonably mature before rolling out SOAR ensures real automated response effectiveness.

6. Conclusion: “SOAR Is the Shadow of SIEM”

  • SOAR aims to “automate security events,” but those events fundamentally originate from SIEM.
  • If SIEM can’t reliably detect attacks, SOAR’s automation means little.
  • Anyone considering SOAR must ask, “Is our SIEM operation advanced enough for auto-response?” That’s a critical step.

7. Final Answer to “If You Deploy SOAR, Then What?”

  1. SOAR is never a standalone magic solution for automated response.
  2. SIEM detection accuracy, staff expertise, rule design must be sufficiently mature for SOAR to safely implement automated response.
  3. If SIEM is incomplete, SOAR simply executes “bad events” → “bad automation,” becoming an even bigger liability.
  4. Thus, it’s not too late to reinforce log collection and analysis first, and only then deploy SOAR for maximum benefit.

✅ Essentially, if you want “SOAR-driven auto-response,” you must first mature your SIEM operations.

📚 PLURA Blog

🌟 PLURA-XDR Services

If you aim for “automated security” via SOAR, ensure your SIEM can collect and analyze “accurate, sufficient logs” under a proper framework. Automation fundamentally depends on trustworthy detection. Without preparation, SOAR can lead to “auto-chaos” rather than auto-response.

Consider adopting the PLURA-XDR automated platform. It integrates SIEM, WAF, and EDR, offering built-in SOAR functionality for automated response.

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