SOAR: Playbooks & Automation Rules
Understanding the Concept
Sentinel's SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) capabilities use automation rules and playbooks to automate incident response. Automation rules apply lightweight actions (assign owner, change severity, run playbook) when incidents are created or updated.
Playbooks are built on Azure Logic Apps and can perform complex automated workflows: sending notifications, creating tickets in ITSM tools, blocking entities in firewalls, enriching entities with threat intelligence, and orchestrating multi-step response procedures.
Automation rules run first for simple triage actions, then trigger playbooks for complex workflows. This two-tier approach provides both speed (automation rules) and flexibility (playbooks).
Key Points
- Automation rules: lightweight actions on incident creation/update
- Playbooks: Azure Logic Apps for complex automated workflows
- Common playbook actions: notify, create ticket, block entity, enrich, respond
- Two-tier automation: rules for triage, playbooks for complex response
- Playbooks can be triggered by automation rules or manually
- Logic App connectors enable integration with hundreds of services
Why This Matters in Real Organizations
Manual incident response is too slow for modern threats. SOAR automates routine response actions, ensuring consistent and rapid response while freeing analysts to handle complex investigations that require human judgment.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Interview Tips
- Describe playbooks you have built or managed
- Discuss how automation improved your team's response time
Exam Tips (SC-200)
- Know the difference between automation rules and playbooks
- Understand Logic App trigger types for Sentinel
- Know common playbook use cases and connector types
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