Daily Threat Intel by CyberDudeBivash
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CYBERDUDEBIVASH

Ultimate SOC Action Checklist Playbook – 2026

AI Era | Zero Trust | Continuous Breach Reality

SOC CORE PRINCIPLES (2026 MANDATE)

Assume breach at all times

Identity is the new perimeter

Speed > Perfection

Automation assists humans decide

Detection without response = failure

CONTINUOUS THREAT AWARENESS (24×7)

SOC MUST ALWAYS:

Monitor global threat intel feeds (nation-state, ransomware, KEV, zero-days)
Track active exploitation trends (not just CVEs)
Correlate external intel with internal telemetry
Maintain a live “Threats Relevant to Us” dashboard

CYBERDUDEBIVASH RULE:
If intel is not mapped to your assets, it’s useless.

IDENTITY-FIRST SECURITY OPERATIONS

CHECKLIST

Monitor anomalous logins (geo, time, device, velocity)
Detect MFA fatigue, push bombing, token reuse
Alert on privilege escalation attempts
Continuously review service accounts & API tokens

2026 REALITY:
80% of breaches start with identity abuse.

VULNERABILITY & KEV PRIORITIZATION ENGINE

SOC ACTION

Track CISA KEV catalog in real time
Map KEVs to internet-facing & critical assets
Patch or mitigate within 24–72 hours max
Validate exploitability, not just severity score

CYBERDUDEBIVASH RULE:
CVSS ≠ Risk. Exploitation = Risk.

ENDPOINT & EDR HUNTING PLAYBOOK

SOC MUST HUNT FOR:

Living-off-the-Land binaries (LOLBins)
Credential dumping artifacts
Suspicious parent-child process chains
Persistence mechanisms (registry, scheduled tasks)

2026 UPGRADE:
Static signatures are dead. Behavior is king.

NETWORK & EAST-WEST VISIBILITY

MANDATORY CHECKS

Lateral movement detection
DNS tunneling & beaconing
Abnormal internal data flows
Command-and-control patterns (low & slow)

CYBERDUDEBIVASH RULE:
If you don’t see east-west traffic, attackers love you.

6️CLOUD & API SECURITY OPERATIONS

SOC ACTION

Continuous API discovery
Detect excessive permissions & token abuse
Monitor cloud logs for abnormal resource access
Alert on privilege changes & service misuse

2026 TRUTH:
APIs are the new attack surface #1.

DATA EXFILTRATION & RANSOMWARE DEFENSE

SOC MUST DETECT

Unusual outbound data volumes
Compression + encryption combos
Access to sensitive datasets outside business hours
Shadow uploads to cloud storage

CYBERDUDEBIVASH RULE:
If you catch exfiltration early, ransomware fails.

AI-POWERED ATTACK READINESS

SOC PREP

Expect polymorphic malware
Detect adaptive evasion behavior
Validate alerts with multi-signal correlation
Never blindly trust AI detections—verify

DEFENDER VS ATTACKER:
AI vs AI. Humans decide the winner.

INCIDENT RESPONSE (IR) – ZERO CONFUSION MODE

IMMEDIATE ACTIONS

Contain first, investigate second
Kill sessions, revoke tokens, isolate hosts
Preserve forensic evidence
Communicate clearly (SOC → IR → Leadership)

CYBERDUDEBIVASH RULE:
Minutes matter more than reports.

POST-INCIDENT HARDENING LOOP

AFTER EVERY INCIDENT

Root cause analysis
Detection gap mapping
Control improvements
Update playbooks
Train analysts using real incident data

2026 SOC RULE:
Every incident must make you stronger.

SOC METRICS THAT ACTUALLY MATTER

Mean Time To Detect (MTTD)

Mean Time To Contain (MTTC)

Identity compromise rate

KEV patch velocity

Alert-to-action ratio