Automating responses to incidents

In organizations, we have multiple teams handling different segments of IT. We have networking departments, system administration, device management teams, and so on. Traditionally, when we have an incident and the SOC needs to isolate a machine or block an IP in the firewall, they would need to raise a ticket in ITSM or send an email request. The department in question then picks this up and acts on it. However, this takes time. An analyst needs to log in to ITSM, open a new ticket, enter all data and a justification in detail, and submit it. Then, the appropriate department needs to verify and act on it, which means they will need to copy the IP or host details, go to the appropriate system, and update it. This adds many unnecessary steps.

With automation, this process can be more efficient. After SOC analysts do their investigation and realize that they need to isolate a machine or block an IP address, they can run a playbook that will perform...