6 Top SOAR Use Cases in Cyber Security

What is SOAR in Cybersecurity?

SOAR stands for Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response. It is a crucial technology platform in security operations that enables organizations to collect threat-related data from various sources, standardize incident response processes, and automate repetitive security tasks. The primary goal of a SOAR is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Security Operations Center (SOC) team.

Continue reading to discover some of the top SOAR use cases in cybersecurity that can be more effectively managed with agentic AI automation.

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1 . Threat Hunting

Slow, manual processes limit a SOC team’s proactive threat hunting capabilities. Most threat research typically involves collecting evidence by manually reviewing logs and accessing multiple third-party systems. Fortunately, threat hunting can be improved with SOAR solutions. SOAR automates the analysis, correlation, and enrichment of data from those logs, significantly improving the speed of the threat research process.

For example, a threat hunter typically has to access a SIEM application and search through dozens of logs, then download the results for analysis. A SOAR platform can perform all those steps automatically without human intervention. As a result, analysts can then spend more time hunting new threats and getting ahead of advisories.

2. Managing Phishing Attempts

Millions of phishing emails are sent daily, resulting in increasingly damaging attacks. For a typical organization, manually triaging just one of these suspected emails can take between 10 and 45 minutes. It’s nearly impossible for SOC teams to investigate every phishing attempt that targets their company.

When you use SOAR to combat phishing attacks, your incident response processes are clearly defined and consistently executed. Rather than relying on human intuition, SOAR tools bring rigorous logic that speeds up response times and reduces human error. It’s also possible to automate containment based on observed behaviors, rather than waiting until a phishing attempt is reported or discovered by your security team. SOAR automates the investigation process and quarantines suspected emails, allowing your SecOps team to focus on more significant threats that require in-depth investigation.

3. Malware Containment

Malware detection is often manual and unstructured, requiring hours to identify it across multiple endpoint sources and then quarantine infected devices. With SOAR, this process can be automated. As soon as malware is detected on one endpoint, it can be immediately checked against other endpoints to determine if they have also been infected. If an infection is identified, the platform can quarantine potentially infected devices before they spread across the network.

The idea of using SOAR platforms for patching and remediation may not seem exciting, but it’s an underrated use case with great potential. Utilizing SOAR to monitor and automatically apply patching management removes the mundane cycle of manually monitoring and updating patches. Not only does this save time for the SecOps team, but it also dramatically reduces an organization’s risk of falling victim to a successful attack.

SOAR platforms also grant access to valuable information about vulnerabilities in an organization. Security flaws, such as missing patches, errors in firewall rules, and misconfigured encryption settings, are made visible, allowing your team to address vulnerabilities efficiently.

5. Compliance Audits and Regulatory Reporting

While not a direct security incident, compliance is a massive time sink for security and GRC teams. SOAR capabilities can be extended to GRC automation, automating the gathering, correlation, and documentation of security data required for various regulatory frameworks.

Instead of manually pulling reports from dozens of different systems, a SOAR platform can automatically execute queries across your environment, compile all the necessary logs and audit trails, and generate a consolidated report ready for review. This transforms the chaos of multi-framework audits into a consistent, repeatable process for compliance audit readiness.

6. Insider Threat Detection and Response

Insider threats, whether malicious or negligent, pose a significant risk, but manually monitoring user behavior is resource-intensive and prone to error.

The platform integrates with HR systems, User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) tools, and access management systems. When a suspicious event is flagged (e.g., an employee accessing sensitive files late at night, or a user exporting an unusually large volume of data), the SOAR playbook can automatically:

• Enrich the alert with context (user role, recent performance reviews, access history).
• Temporarily restrict the user’s access or enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
• Open a case for a human analyst with all the correlated evidence, making the investigation instantaneous.

SOAR Example 

One of the most powerful examples of a SOAR use cases is the complete handling of phishing emails. When a suspicious email is reported, the SOAR platform triggers an automated workflow that begins by extracting Indicators of Compromise (IOCs), such as URLs and file hashes. The platform then uses security orchestration to query multiple external Threat Intelligence sources and detonate the attachment in a sandbox. 

If the threat is confirmed, the system immediately launches the final SOAR incident response: communicating with the email gateway to purge the malicious email from all user inboxes and instructing the network security tools to block the sender’s IP at the firewall, thus achieving rapid containment and dramatically reducing the MTTR.

Extend Beyond SOAR with Agentic AI Automation

SOAR platforms have been helping SOC teams improve common workflows, such as those outlined in this blog, for over a decade. However, rigid playbooks and limited adaptability often constrain their capabilities. Agentic AI automation overcomes these barriers by autonomously analyzing context, recommending next-best actions, and executing workflows across SOC environments.

By moving beyond traditional SOAR, organizations gain the flexibility, scale, and intelligence needed to secure everything from legacy on-premises systems to modern cloud-native environments..

Discover how agentic AI automation can help your team implement AI-driven security automation at scale and unlock the full potential of your SOC.

Learn more

SOAR Use Cases FAQs

What is the core SOAR meaning in cybersecurity, and SOAR security meaning?

In cybersecurity, SOAR stands for Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response. It refers to a platform that centralizes alerts from multiple security tools and automates repetitive tasks involved in threat triage and remediation, helping Security Operations Center (SOC) teams respond faster and more efficiently.

What are the primary SOAR capabilities?

The core SOAR capabilities are built on three pillars:

1. Orchestration: Connecting and integrating all security tools and systems (EDR, SIEM, Firewall) to work together.
2. Automation: Automatically executing defined tasks, such as enriching alerts or blocking indicators of compromise (IOCs).
3. Response: The ability to execute pre-defined workflows to contain and remediate security threats.

How does SOAR specifically improve incident response?

SOAR improves incident response by reducing MTTR through automation of time-consuming tasks, including alert triage, data enrichment, and containment actions like endpoint isolation or malicious email deletion.

What are some examples of SOAR network security in action?

SOAR network security involves using the platform to dynamically control network access and traffic. A typical example is when a malicious IP address is confirmed during an investigation; the SOAR platform instantly communicates with the organization’s firewall to automatically create a block rule, preventing that threat actor from communicating with the network perimeter or internal systems again.