How Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Can Help Stop Ransomware

I’m a veteran of the cyber challenge — for decades, from the days the Slammer worm took down half the internet. At the time we considered automation to be a custom script that barely held the network together. This is something that ransomware is now too fast for manual responses. If you’re still waiting for a human analyst to crawl through logs and hit containment manually — you’ve already lost. That’s where SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) becomes relevant.

What is SOAR?

When you add automation, intelligence, and real-time decision-making to traditional security operations, you get SOAR. It’s the nervous system of your SOC (Security Operations Center), aggregating data from every security tool you own, from firewalls to endpoint detection to SIEM to the threat intel feeds that feeds it, and making instantaneous decisions based on predetermined playbooks.

Here’s the beauty of it:

• It real-time threat detection.
• It views the incident from a multi-layered security perspective.
• Automatically initiates a response — blocking IPs, quarantining infected machines, notifying appropriate teams.

This isn’t just some theoretical pitch — I’ve deployed SOAR solutions at banks, financial institutions and even government systems to halt all sorts of real, active attacks.

SOAR’s Role in Ransomware Automation

Ransomware is quick — once it has a foothold, it encrypts everything it can access, usually within minutes. Speed is the only way to combat speed in the first place. Here’s how SOAR ensures ransomware never stands a chance:

1. Early Detection

• SOAR constantly pulls data from firewalls, endpoint protection, SIEM logs, and threat intelligence feeds.
• It identifies suspicious behavior such as large-scale file changes, unauthorized credentials use or sudden privilege elevation — all of which are typical signs of active ransomware.

2. Automated Containment

• Immediately upon detection of ransomware activity, SOAR can:
• Segment endpoints from the network.
• Suspend affected user accounts.
• The Firewall should drop malicious requests.
• Initiate backups and snapshots to safeguard data.

3. Threat Neutralization

• When SOAR contains the threat, it begins automated forensic analysis of the event—its ability to triage at machine speed brings security teams up to speed on where the infection started, how far it spread, and what needs remediating.
• If the malware is known, SOAR can automatically deploy remediation scripts to clean it. Otherwise, it goes to an analyst with all the data he or she needs — no spending time churning through endless SIEM logs.

4. Post-Incident Hardening

• SOAR does not end at containment — it learns from every attack.
• It can spin up new firewall rules, update threat detection models and harden weak configurations that let the ransomware in, automatically after an attack.

This isn’t science fiction. I have implemented SOAR systems that performed full incident containment in less than 2 mins — much faster than any human could react to manually.

Real-World Use Cases

1. A Ransomware Attack Hits a Bank — at Midnight

One of our customers, a mid-sized bank, received a ransomware hit at 1:37 a.m. on a Sunday. By the time SOAR kicked in:

• It detected unusual PowerShell activity from a compromised administrator account.
• With the account disabled before it went any further.
• Quarantined the infected work station prior to encryption spreading.
• Triggered an automated alert, as well as sending a complete forensic package to the security team for review on Monday morning.

End result? No data loss, no ransom paid.

2. Infection in Retail Supply Chain

During a routine remote support session, a retailer’s third-party vendor introduced ransomware. But SOAR did not wait for humans to intervene:

• It severed the vendor’s connection.
• Prevention all file encryptions in 10 seconds.
• Advanced the company’s remote access policies to prevent future occurrences.

3. Government Agency Assault — Pre-Emptive Attack

Another client we worked with used SOAR to correlate logs across multiple departments. One day, SOAR detected a sudden increase in anomalous SMB traffic, the classic pre-encryption phase of a ransomware attack.

• SOAR identified, labeled and stopped the malicious traffic within 30 seconds.
• Investigators determined that patient-zero was the device of an intern running outdated software.
• Agency-wide patching and staff awareness training was initiated by default.

That intern nearly cost them a fortune. But SOAR quashed it before it even began.

PJ Networks’ SOAR Solutions

That is what we do every single day at PJ Networks. We create and implement customized SOAR solutions for:

• Banking and financial institutions
• Retail and supply chain systems
• Government agencies
• Businesses looking for zero trust security

I’ve personally assisted three banks with their zero-trust architectures in recent times, showing them how to use SOAR to patch security gaps, facilitate incident response, and remove manual bottlenecks.

Our SOAR approach includes:

• Automated detection & response for ransomware
• Playbooks customized for your unique security workflows
• Compatibility with current firewalls, SIEMs and endpoint security
• Recommendations for incident reporting & security hardening

Quick Take

If you have 30 seconds, read this:

• Ransomware moves too quickly for humans to respond alone.
• SOAR detects, contains, and remediates— before damage is done.
• We have seen real-world scenarios where SOAR halted live cyber extortion incidents in under a minute.
• If your SOC doesn’t use SOAR for ransomware, you’re already behind the attackers.

Conclusion

Look—it’s 2024. These ransomware gangs are running like military-grade, super-automated, highly-precise operations. If your security team responds manually to live threats, you’re in a losing game.

SOAR is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s a must-have.

If you really want to stop ransomware cold before it cripples your business, it’s time to turn to automation. And if you’re unsure of where to begin? We’ll work with you to design, deploy, and integrate SOAR into your existing security stack — without a hitch. Since in cybersecurity, speed is survival.

And trust me — attackers are not letting up anytime soon.