Automating the Defense: Enterprise Integration & Workflow Provisioning for IR (Activity 6.2.2 Part 1)

Following our deep dive into “Task Automation Analysis” (Activity 6.2.1), where we meticulously identified and planned what security tasks can and should be automated, we now move to the critical phase of implementation. This brings us to Zero Trust Activity 6.2.2: Enterprise Integration & Workflow Provisioning Pt1.

This activity is the direct operationalization of automation in Zero Trust, focusing specifically on Incident Response (IR) functions. It mandates that the DoD Enterprise establishes baseline integration and interoperability within the Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) solution. This SOAR solution is where “actionable and relevant information resides”, meaning it’s fed by intelligence from across your security stack. Components then undertake the practical work: identifying, instrumenting, integrating, and prioritizing key interoperability points across the enterprise, guided by this baseline. The immediate focus is on completing the necessary integrations in the User, Device, Application & Workload, Network & Environment, and Data pillars to automate critical IR functions.

This activity is vital for accelerating your incident response capabilities. It’s about connecting the “brains” of your security tools to the “hands” of automation, ensuring that when a threat is detected, the response is swift, consistent, and less reliant on manual intervention.

The outcomes for Activity 6.2.2 highlight the operational deployment of automation:

1. DoD Enterprise establishes baseline integration and interoperability with SOAR to enable ZT Target Level functionality.
2. Components identify key integrations.
3. Components implement Enterprise integration and interoperability for critical services.
4. Components identify recovery and protection requirements.

The ultimate end state underscores the strategic impact: Critical integrations occur to meet key services and enable recovery and protection capabilities. This signifies the ability to automate crucial defensive actions, improving resilience and reducing the impact of security incidents.

Solutions for Achieving Enterprise Integration & Workflow Provisioning Pt1

Implementing Activity 6.2.2 requires deploying a robust SOAR platform and systematically integrating it with your entire Zero Trust ecosystem, leveraging the API capabilities we’ve been building:

1. Procure and Implement a Central SOAR Platform:
   1. Acquire and deploy a scalable SOAR solution at the enterprise level that can orchestrate automated workflows (playbooks) across a wide range of security tools. The SOAR will be the central hub for automating incident response tasks identified in 6.2.1.
2. Cross-Pillar Integration and Interoperability:
   1. Process: Components identify and prioritize which security tools (e.g., your IdP, UEDM, EDR, NGFW, DLP) need to be integrated with the SOAR. Prioritization should be based on the impact on IR functions and the risk of the assets involved.
   2. Technical Integration: Establish API connectivity between the SOAR platform and these disparate security tools across all Zero Trust pillars. This enables the SOAR to:
      1. Ingest Alerts/Data: Receive alerts and rich contextual data from tools (e.g., EDR alerts, IdP suspicious login attempts, firewall blocks).
      2. Execute Actions: Programmatically trigger actions in those tools (e.g., quarantine a device via UEDM/EDR, reset a user’s password via IdP, enrich an incident with data from multiple sources).
3. Developing and Automating Incident Response (IR) Functions:
   1. Based on the process flows defined in Activity 6.2.1, develop automated playbooks within the SOAR platform for common IR functions. Examples include:
      1. Automated alert triage and enrichment.
      2. User/device isolation and quarantine.
      3. Threat containment actions.
      4. Data collection for forensics.
      5. Automated ticket creation in ITSM systems.
   2. Focus initial automation efforts on critical services to provide immediate impact and mitigate risk.
4. Defining Recovery and Protection Requirements:
   1. As part of automating IR, Components define explicit recovery and protection requirements for critical services. This informs the design of SOAR playbooks to ensure automated responses contribute directly to restoring services and protecting data during and after an incident.

How Key Technologies Contribute to Activity 6.2.2 Part 1:

This activity sees our strategic OEM partners playing direct, active roles in automating Incident Response:

• Tines (The SOAR Platform): Tines is the central SOAR solution enabling Activity 6.2.2. It provides the platform for building, managing, and executing the automated IR workflows. Its “story” building blocks and comprehensive integration capabilities allow Components to connect to various security tools (like Trellix and Elastic) and orchestrate complex sequences of actions without extensive coding, turning the process flows from 6.2.1 into living automations.
• Trellix (Endpoint Data & Action): Trellix’s integrated XDR platform (Endpoint Security, EDR, DLP) is a critical data source and enforcement point for automating IR.
  • Data Source: It feeds alerts and rich endpoint telemetry (from EDR/XDR) into the SOAR (Tines) and SIEM (Elastic).
  • Actionable Control: Via its APIs, Trellix enables the SOAR to automatically take actions on endpoints, such as isolating a compromised device, terminating malicious processes, or performing a remote scan, directly contributing to rapid threat mitigation. This is how it interacts with the Device pillar components.
• Elastic Security (Central Visibility & Data): Elastic Security, acting as the SIEM/XDR, is the central repository for actionable and relevant information that triggers and informs IR automations.
  • Alert Aggregation & Correlation: It ingests and correlates logs from virtually all security tools across your entire stack (including Trellix alerts, network logs, cloud logs, identity logs), identifying security incidents that then trigger SOAR playbooks in Tines.
  • Data Enrichment: Elastic provides vast historical and real-time data for SOAR playbooks to query for context during automation.
  • Automation Target/Source: Elastic’s APIs can be used by Tines to retrieve specific event details or push remediation commands, and Elastic can also serve as an enforcement point for certain detections within its platform. This shows its integration with the Visibility & Analytics, Network & Environment, and Data pillars.

Key Items to Consider:

• Playbook Development: The quality and robustness of your automated playbooks are paramount. Start with simpler, high-frequency, low-risk tasks and gradually increase complexity.
• API Readiness: Ensure all security tools that are part of the IR workflow have robust, well-documented APIs that the SOAR platform can reliably interact with.
• Data Quality: The effectiveness of SOAR is directly tied to the quality, context, and normalization of the data it receives from integrated sources (Activity 2.7.2).
• Integration Testing: Thoroughly test all automated workflows in non-production environments before deploying them to production.
• Human Oversight: Even with automation, human oversight and intervention points are essential, especially for critical or irreversible actions.
• Security of the SOAR Platform: The SOAR platform itself becomes a high-value target and must be rigorously secured.
• Metrics and ROI: Define clear metrics to measure the effectiveness and ROI of your automation efforts (e.g., reduction in mean time to respond – MTTR, analyst hours saved).

For the Technical Buyer

For technical buyers, Activity 6.2.2 means deploying a robust SOAR platform like Tines and systematically integrating it with your entire Zero Trust ecosystem, particularly leveraging the rich data and action capabilities of Trellix for endpoints and Elastic Security for centralized visibility. This cross-pillar integration is what allows you to automate critical IR functions, significantly reducing response times, limiting human error, and ultimately enhancing your organization’s resilience against modern threats. 

Pillar: Automation and Orchestration 

Capability: 6.2 Critical Process Automation 

Activity: 6.2.2 Enterprise Integration & Workflow Provisioning Pt1 

Phase: Target Level 

Predecessor(s): 6.2.1 Task Automation Analysis 

Successor(s): 6.2.3 Enterprise Integration & Workflow Provisioning Pt2