Financial Services
October 15, 2024

Financial Services: SOC Modernization

Microsoft Sentinel
Azure Logic Apps
Jira
Sigma Rules
KQL

Key outcomes

False Positive Rate

Before:95%
After:15%
-84%

Mean Time to Detect

Before:4.5 hours
After:1.8 hours
-60%

Analyst Time on Triage

Before:80%
After:30%
-63%

Automation Coverage

Before:0%
After:70%
+70%

The challenge

A mid-sized fintech company was operating a legacy SIEM with a 95% false positive rate. Their three-person security team spent 80% of their time triaging alerts, leaving little bandwidth for proactive threat hunting or security improvements. They had no automation, inconsistent runbooks, and mounting pressure from auditors to demonstrate detection capabilities.

Our approach

We started with a 3-week Assess engagement to document their current detection coverage, identify gaps against MITRE ATT&CK, and prioritize quick wins. Based on the roadmap, we embedded a 2-engineer FDE pod for 10 weeks to: - Migrate 50+ legacy detection rules to Sigma format - Build automated triage workflows using Microsoft Sentinel and Logic Apps - Develop 12 custom runbooks for common investigation scenarios - Implement evidence collection automation (logs, registry, process trees) - Train the internal team on detection engineering best practices

The outcome

After 10 weeks, the SOC was transformed: - False positive rate dropped from 95% to 15% through improved detection logic and automated enrichment - Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) decreased by 60% with better log coverage and correlation rules - 70% of common investigation steps were automated, freeing analysts for high-value work - The internal team could independently maintain and tune detections after knowledge transfer The company transitioned to our Operate tier for ongoing monitoring and quarterly detection reviews.

Covenda didn't just give us recommendations - they rolled up their sleeves and built our detection pipeline with us. Our analysts can finally focus on real threats instead of drowning in false positives.
VP of Security, Confidential Fintech

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