IT Services recently implemented a new Security Operations Center (SOC) at UA Little Rock. The SOC is an enterprise-level unit responsible for managing information security services on behalf of the university. It helps secure the networks, provide guidance for best practices, and ensure any student or employee of the university can work safely and effectively. Services include account security monitoring, remote access analysis, network traffic measurement, logging, and incident response.
As a critical unit of the university, the SOC ensures user accounts remain secure. As a result of the SOC’s diligence tracking suspicious activities, a relatively small number of user account incidents are reported. These services increase efficiency and security both on campus and for remote faculty, staff, and students.
The SOC monitors any unusual activity including multiple password attempts from off-campus, security breaches, and proactively responds to the evolving cyber threat landscape. The SOC is also responsible for responding to and reporting on the findings on those alerts triggered by our layers of intrusion protection systems, as well as other operational security and threat trends.
Thus far, the SOC has reset hundreds of compromised accounts, helped identify and deactivate unused inactive accounts, and detected several malicious actors attempting to hack into university affiliated accounts. Information gleaned on malicious actors blocks them from the network which reduces the effectiveness of future hack attempts.
As cybersecurity threats become more frequent and sophisticated, the SOC will evolve to protect the research, educational, and business goals at UA Little Rock.