A new employee joins the Security Operations Center (SOC) team and requires access to monitor security events, view detection activity, and analyze incidents. However, the employee should not have the ability to make changes to policies or manage user roles. Which role is most appropriate for this user?

The 'Analyst' role is specifically designed for Security Operations Center (SOC) personnel responsible for the day-to-day investigation of security events. This role grants the necessary permissions to view security data, monitor alerts, and actively analyze incidents, which includes actions like triaging, investigating, and documenting findings within the security platform. It correctly implements the principle of least privilege by withholding administrative permissions, such as modifying security policies or managing user accounts, which are explicitly outside the scope of the new employee's duties. This ensures the employee can perform their core functions without posing a risk to the system's configuration.

A. Policy Manager: This role is incorrect because it grants permissions to create, edit, and manage security policies, which is explicitly prohibited by the requirements.
C. Read-Only Analyst: This role is too restrictive. While it allows viewing, it typically prevents the user from interacting with or modifying the state of an incident, which is essential for analysis and triage.
D. Administrator: This role provides excessive privileges, including user management and system-wide configuration changes, far exceeding the needs of an analyst and violating the principle of least privilege.

1. Palo Alto Networks. (2023). Cortex XDR Administrator’s Guide. Section: "Predefined Roles". The guide defines the "Security Analyst" role as having permissions to view and manage incidents and alerts but not to manage roles

users

or security policies. The "Read-only" role is defined with view-only permissions

which would inhibit active analysis.

2. CrowdStrike. (2023). Falcon Platform Documentation. Section: "User Management and Roles". The documentation outlines the "Analyst" role

which can view and manage detections and incidents. In contrast

the "Read-Only Analyst" can only view this information

and the "Administrator" has full platform control. This aligns with the selection of 'Analyst' for the described tasks.

3. Al-issa

Y. (2015). Building a World-Class Security Operations Center: A Roadmap. SANS Institute InfoSec Reading Room. Page 12

Section: "SOC Roles and Responsibilities". This paper describes the responsibilities of a Tier 1 SOC Analyst

which include "monitoring

triage

and initial investigation of security events." These tasks require interactive access to security tools

which is characteristic of an 'Analyst' role

not a 'Read-Only' one.