Security laid out in the centers – Kommersant

With the increase in the number of cyber attacks and data leaks, Russian companies have increasingly turned to the previously niche services of cybersecurity monitoring and control centers (SOC). Demand grew by 25% yoy in the first quarter. At the end of 2022, market participants estimated its volume at 20 billion rubles. By the end of 2023, growth could be up to 70%: core companies that are expanding staff and computing power are raising prices.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the analytical report of the information security cybersecurity vendor “Informzaschita”, dedicated to the development of cybersecurity monitoring and control centers that deal with the prevention and elimination of cyber attacks. It shows that the demand for SOC services grew by 25% in the first quarter, while prices increased by 15%. Informzashchita notes that earlier such dynamics was not observed due to “weak market readiness for such expensive and complex solutions.” The dynamics this year is due, among other things, to the demand for investigation of incidents by users, as well as the entry of new large players into the market, according to the company.

Now there are more than 17 participants in the segment, including RTK-Solar (Rostelecom), MTS, BI.Zone (ex-structure of Sberbank) and MegaFon. The latter entered the market only last year. “The emergence of new players will contribute to the growth of competition, expansion of the pool and quality of services provided, which will become drivers of market growth,” says Elena Rukhlova, a leading analyst at Informzaschita.

SOC is qualified people and capacities (specialized software, servers and network infrastructure) plus processes for detecting incidents and responding to them, says Rustem Khairetdinov, Deputy General Director of Garda Technologies. The construction of SOC requires from six months to one and a half years. Last year, many companies were faced with the fact that their basic security tools could not cope, and to maintain the efficiency of digital systems, it was necessary to quickly increase the expertise and infrastructure, so the need for commercial SOCs has increased, Mr. Khairetdinov explains.

MTS estimated the size of the SOC market at the end of last year at about 20 billion rubles. and confirm growth expectations. “The risks of cyberattacks are becoming more and more obvious for companies, and the requirements of regulators are becoming stricter,” Savva Livchin, head of business analysis at MTS Red, notes. “In 2023, we expect the trend to continue, the increase could be 68%.” The increase in the number of cyber incidents, especially data leaks, continues: the volume of stolen personal information for the first quarter increased by 2.3 times year on year (see Kommersant on April 18). “Under the current conditions, companies and organizations need to understand the causes and find weaknesses in protection, and act proactively,” adds Aleksey Novikov, director of the Positive Technologies security expert center.

The incident investigation service is mainly relevant for large companies and government organizations that are increasingly becoming victims of malicious attacks, “the key drivers of the SOC direction are an increase in potential damage from attacks, an increase in the number of leaks in large companies, as well as increased regulation in this area” , believe in MegaFon.

According to BI.Zone, the growth in requests for services for monitoring, investigating and responding to cybersecurity incidents was approximately 20% year-on-year. The company explains that foreign organizations suspended their activities in the Russian Federation and transferred the business to Russian investors, while often the assets were protected by the parent organization or foreign service providers, and “with the disconnection from the head office, the localized companies needed to fill the cybersecurity functions.”

At the same time, SOC commercial operators faced difficulty in scaling due to a shortage of computer equipment and specialists, “thus, the price of SOC services was affected by an average salary increase of 30% and an increase in the cost of servers,” says Rustem Khairetdinov.

Tatyana Isakova