Aug 04 2025
Security

SOC as a Service for K–12 Schools

Security operations center services can improve a district’s cyber defenses, but only if it takes a thoughtful approach to the investment.

Running a security operations center isn’t a simple task. It requires analyzing security events and deciding which ones require a response; working with students, faculty and staff; installing, managing and writing rules for security information and event management (SIEM); and threat hunting and identifying root causes.

Even the smallest SOC will require three to four full-time team members. That’s a lot of resources for a K–12 district; many districts have no dedicated security professionals at all.

As a result, most schools don’t have a SOC, even as investments in SOCs grow worldwide. Research predicts that the global SOC market will reach $91.88 billion in 2034, an increase of 114% from an estimated $42.85 billion in 2024.

One alternative to “giving up and hoping for the best” when it comes to cybersecurity is SOC as a Service, or SOCaaS.

Click the banner below to explore managed security services for your school.

 

What Is SOCaaS?

SOCaaS is a managed security services provider (MSSP) that offers cloud-based SOC services: SIEM software configuration, rule writing, threat prioritization and threat response.

By using SOCaaS, school districts get trained security professionals to examine their networks, identify the most urgent issues and manage incidents. These experts are dedicated to catching security problems before they turn into major breaches.

Outsourcing a SOC requires a certain amount of discipline and technical infrastructure already in place.

3 Elements Schools Need for Success With SOC Services

There are three key elements to success with SOCaaS: a good data feed, a solid security policy, and an informed system and application inventory.

1. The Data Feed

SOCs, whether in-house or as a service, depend on log analysis from a SIEM solution or other tool as the starting point for their day-to-day operation. SIEM, in turn, depends on security tools throughout the school’s network regularly sending security data.

For example, school desktop and laptop computers should be running some type of anti-malware software such as an endpoint protection platform, endpoint detection and response, or extended detection and response solution.

Any of those will suffice if the tool can send information about issues and incidents to the SOC’s SIEM tools.

The same is true for servers, major applications and infrastructure devices, such as unified threat mitigation firewalls and switches. If your school district doesn’t have endpoint and server protection tools and isn’t using a UTM firewall, then the SOC doesn’t have a useful data feed to work from.

2. The Security Policy

A second requirement for successful SOCaaS is a good security policy.

In modern schools, students and staff rely heavily on IT equipment throughout the day. The SOC will see a steady stream of log messages, but without a strong security policy, it has no guidance on what should and shouldn’t be cause for action.

For example, if a student unsuccessfully tries to log in to a teacher-only application, what should the SOC do? Ignore it? Report on it at the end of the month? Lock down the student’s PC?

RELATED: Schools rely on tech to defend against student-built proxies.

What if a new switch is installed in the network? What configuration elements must be in place to meet the school district’s requirements?

The answers are in the security policy, a vital resource that sets the rules of the road for the school district’s networks and systems. Security policies are indispensable to SOCs.

$91.88 billion

The projected value of the global security operations center market by 2034

Source: Polaris Market Research, Security Operations Center (SOC) Market Size, Share, Trends, Industry Analysis Report, May 2025

3. System and Application Inventory

The third requirement is an informed system and application inventory. Every MSSP offering SOCaaS starts out at a distinct disadvantage: They don’t know which are the most important servers, applications, databases and users.

SOCs always have more alerts than they can handle, so the school needs to identity priority elements to help structure threat response. An alert on a school’s domain controller is a lot more important than a print server, while the same alert on a test system might be worth ignoring.

Likewise, suspicious activity from a school principal’s account has a higher priority for investigation than the same activity from a student.

Without a proper IT inventory, the SOC won’t be able to do a good job.

DIVE DEEPER: Inventory is a key element of incident response planning.

Evaluate SOCaaS Providers With These Considerations in Mind

SOCaaS are not plug-and-play solutions, where you hand off security responsibilities and move on. K–12 schools must actively manage these partnerships to ensure the SOC is properly aligned to the district’s needs and delivering value.

Here are some things to keep in mind.

Trust, but verify: A SOCaaS contract should include performance metrics and reporting requirements for the SOC team so IT leadership can report to the district executive team on the SOC’s effectiveness and response time.

Look for a partner: The SOCaaS should be an active partner in school security, not just responding to incidents but also identifying security trends, making recommendations and providing risk analysis to increase the overall maturity level of the school district over time.

Privacy in K–12 is vital: The MSSP should understand important regulatory frameworks like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the Children’s Internet Protection Act. Allocate time and resources when choosing an MSSP to make sure its SOCaaS team understands that K–12 network security can’t be handled in the same way as a typical corporate network. Additionally, K–12 IT teams must know where the SOC team is located and where their data is being received, stored and processed.

DON’T MISS: What do K–12 IT leaders need to know about KOSA?

Be careful of costs: Pricing models are not uniform. They may be based on the number of devices or the volume of log data. When comparing MSSPs and their SOCaaS offerings, K–12 stakeholders need to understand what services are included. Is the MSSP providing alert monitoring and reports, or does the offering also include triage, incident response coordination and threat hunting?

Know your exit strategy: Document everything during the startup phase. This will give IT teams insight into how the shutdown phase will happen. Insist that the MSSP keeps information on log data feeds updated and correct so that every bit of configuration needed to pull the SOC back in-house or shift to a different vendor is attainable.

SOCaaS is a force multiplier for K–12 IT teams. It delivers around-the-clock monitoring and rapid threat detection and response to districts that lack the resources to build an in-house SOC.  SOCaaS, properly implemented, is a powerful and cost-effective way to protect students, teachers and staff from an increasingly dangerous cyberthreat environment.

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