How SOAR & IR Solutions Revolutionized Our Client's Incident Response

Client Overview

Industry: B2B SaaS

Product: Microsoft 365 + AWS-based SaaS platform serving 1,200 customer organizations

Tech stack: Microsoft Sentinel SIEM, Logic Apps SOAR, Microsoft Defender XDR, Entra ID, ServiceNow ITSM, custom Python orchestration

The client is a mid-sized Indian SaaS company with approximately 400 employees, 1,200 customer organizations and three product lines. Primary office in Bengaluru with hybrid workforce post-COVID, primarily Microsoft 365 and AWS infrastructure.

Challenge

Three factors drove the urgency of this engagement:

• Alert volume saturation. 200+ alerts per analyst per shift with a 60% false positive rate, creating constant alert fatigue and missed incidents
• Slow incident response. Mean time to respond averaged 14 hours, with critical incidents sometimes lingering 3-5 days due to manual triage workflows
• Analyst time waste. Tier 1 analysts spent 80% of their time on repetitive enrichment tasks instead of actual incident response

Our Approach

Codesecure delivered a structured engagement combining automated coverage with deep manual testing focused on the specific risk areas for this client.

Scope of Testing

The engagement covered the following primary areas:

• Deployed Microsoft Sentinel's built-in SOAR capabilities (Logic Apps + Automation Rules)
• Built 12 high-volume incident playbooks covering phishing, credential abuse, malware detection, suspicious login enrichment
• Integrated 15+ data sources for automated enrichment (threat intel, asset criticality, user history, similar past incidents)
• Implemented tiered governance: automated for enrichment, human-approved for blast-radius actions
• Trained Tier 1 analysts on SOAR-augmented workflows with clear escalation paths
• Established metrics dashboard: MTTR per incident type, alert volume, false positive rate, automation success
• Quarterly tabletop exercises validating SOAR-augmented response across scenarios

Reporting & Walkthrough

Executive summary delivered alongside a technical report containing reproducible PoC steps, CVSS v3.1 severity scoring and developer-actionable remediation guidance. Live walkthrough with the client team covered every critical finding with reproduction and recommended fix path.

Results

Critical Findings

• MTTR reduced 73% from 14 hours baseline to 3 hours 40 minutes average within 6 months
• Median MTTR dropped from 6 hours to under 90 minutes
• Tier 1 alert backlog at end of shift dropped to near zero, enabling proactive threat hunting

High & Medium Severity

Analyst time on enrichment reduced 80%, freeing 12+ hours per shift for hunting; same analyst headcount now handles 2.5x the alert volume; analyst pulse-survey satisfaction improved measurably; false positive recognition got faster (no more enrichment-then-realize-FP); alert quality improved with rich context on every incident.

Before vs. After

Key Lessons

Conclusion

SOAR is not a SOC analyst replacement, it removes the repetitive work so analysts can focus on judgment, hunting and incident command. With well-designed playbooks and proper governance, SOAR delivers measurable MTTR improvements while keeping humans in the loop for high-stakes decisions.

For Indian enterprises with mature SOC operations, SOAR is the next investment after SIEM. Codesecure delivers SOAR implementation with named engineering leads, playbook design tailored to your environment, and managed SOC services with India-based analysts.