You Built a SOC. But Did You Build Readiness?

We talk to security leaders every week who believe their SOC is “up and running.” And on paper, it is. SIEM deployed. Analysts hired. Alerts flowing. But readiness? Not quite.

That’s why we created the SOC Requirements Checklist for 2025 — a practical, section-by-section tool for evaluating whether your SOC (internal or outsourced) delivers what matters: 24/7 coverage, real response, not alert forwarding, clear metrics, etc. 

You can grab the full checklist at the end of this post — but first, here’s why we made it.

Get the checklist 

Built for RFPs, audits, and internal reviews.

Real story: the “it looked good on paper” SOC

Meet Elena — Head of InfoSec at a growing SaaS company. She inherited a partially built SOC. SIEM was already licensed. Two analysts are onboard. A basic ticketing system is running.

Leadership thought they were covered. Then came a ransomware alert on a Sunday night.

• No one responded until Monday morning — no 24/7 shift coverage
• The analyst on duty wasn’t trained on the system that triggered the alert
• There were no playbooks for ransomware, no predefined escalation
• The logs were incomplete — several systems weren’t even onboarded
• The breach spread, unnoticed, for 6+ hours

The tools were there. The intent was there. But readiness? No. The result?

• $2.1M in damage
• A month of downtime
• A boardroom conversation that started with “What went wrong?” and ended with “Do we have a SOC?”

What most SOCs miss (and why it matters)

We’ve seen it repeatedly — SOCs that technically exist, but fail in the moments that matter most.

Here’s what’s usually missing:

• No true 24/7 monitoring — just “on-call”
• No root cause analysis — just ticket closures
• No metrics like MTTR or RCA% are being tracked
• No executive reporting that communicates risk
• No maturity assessments or live validation
• No clarity around who owns what when things break

That’s exactly why we made the checklist.

What the SOC requirements checklist covers

• 10 critical sections (from detection to compliance)
• A 25-question evaluation set you can use on providers or internal teams
• SLA benchmarks for response, uptime, and RCA documentation
• Criteria mapped to tools (SIEM, SOAR, UEBA, EDR, MISP), people, and performance
• A format you can use in audits, board reviews, or vendor interviews

Before you build, switch, or renew your SOC setup

…make sure your team — or your provider — can check the boxes that matter.

Download the SOC Requirements checklist >>> Field-tested by real teams. Written by practitioners. Free to use.