Someone in the room states confidently, “We’ve got a SOC now.” You ask for clarification. They point to the network intrusion detection system they installed six months ago, a rack-mounted appliance, a dashboard, and a vendor contract.
They believe they’ve established a Security Operations Centre, but what they’ve truly done is just install a sensor.
This confusion is widespread. Boardrooms. Budget meetings. Risk registers. Organisations invest heavily in OT network monitoring, tick the box labelled “security operations,” and move on. But when an alert triggers, no one knows how to handle it. When an incident occurs, there’s no clear process to follow. When the pressure mounts, the costly tools sit idle because the necessary capability isn’t in place.
A SOC is not a product. It’s an organisational capability. The gap between them is where risk lurks.
What People Think a SOC Is
The misunderstanding is understandable. Vendor messaging often causes confusion. Marketing materials promise “complete visibility” and “24/7 monitoring” in a box. Compliance frameworks ask, “Do you have security monitoring in place?” and accept a yes based on deployment, not operation. Procurement teams look for line items they can approve. A NIDS fits neatly into that model.
So the logic goes like this: deploy detection, get alerts, job done. But detection without response is just costly logging. Alerts without investigation are noise. Monitoring without escalation paths, trained analysts, and integration into business operations is theatre.
A SOC is not just a dashboard; it’s a function that relies on much more than a single technical tool.
What a SOC Actually Requires
A functioning Security Operations Centre relies on layers. Detection is one of these layers, but it operates within an ecosystem of complementary capabilities, all of which must collaborate.
Log management. You need centralised visibility across OT. NIDS data is useful, but only when correlated with other sources: authentication logs, process anomalies, network flows, physical access. Without aggregation, you’re blind to context.
SIEM. Security Information and Event Management platforms consolidate different data streams and apply rules, correlations, and prioritisation. They transform raw alerts into actionable insights. A NIDS alone can’t do this.
Ticketing systems. When an alert is generated, someone must take ownership. Ticketing creates accountability, tracks progress, and ensures incidents are addressed. Without this, alerts become background noise.
Playbooks and procedures. What do you do when the NIDS flags unusual traffic? Who gets contacted? What’s the escalation process? How do you determine if it’s a false positive or a genuine threat? Process turns detection into action.
Forensics tools. When an investigation is needed, you need the ability to dig deeper: packet captures, memory analysis, historical baselines. A NIDS shows what happened on the wire. Forensics explains why it matters and what steps to take next.
Integration with operations. OT environments do not pause for investigations. Security decisions must respect production schedules, safety protocols, and uptime needs. A SOC that is isolated from plant management will be ignored.
Trained people. Someone must interpret alerts, correlate data, make decisions under pressure, and communicate with stakeholders. Analysts need domain expertise, operational context, and decision-making authority. A tool can’t do that.
A NIDS provides one input into this system. It is not the complete system itself.
The Consequence of the Gap
Here’s what happens when organisations confuse deployment with capability. Alerts fire and pile up in a queue no one checks, or they get dismissed as false positives because no one has the context to assess them. Real incidents blend into the noise.
By the time someone realises something is wrong, the containment window has closed. Boards believe they are covered, and risk committees see “security monitoring” on the list then move on. Budgets are allocated elsewhere, while the underlying gap grows. When an incident finally breaks containment, the question isn’t “Why didn’t we detect it?” but “Why didn’t we respond?” The NIDS did its job; it detected.
However, detection without response merely documents failure.
Think Capability, Not Product
A SOC isn’t something you buy off a shelf. It’s something you build, run, and improve over time.
It calls for investment in people who understand both security and operations. It demands processes that link detection to decision-making. It requires integration across tools, teams, and business functions. It requires leadership that understands the difference between having a sensor and having a capability.
Vendors will keep selling “SOC in a box.” Compliance frameworks will keep asking shallow questions. But the organisations that get this right are the ones that stop thinking about procurement and start thinking about operations.
They ask tougher questions. They design for response, not just detection. They build the supporting structure that makes monitoring effective rather than just performative.
An OT NIDS is neither a starting point nor a finishing line.
Questions to Ask Internally
If your organisation has deployed OT network monitoring, ask these questions:
Who’s monitoring the alerts? Not “who’s responsible,” but who actually opens the console, reviews the data, and determines what matters?
What occurs when an alert fires? Is there a documented process? A ticketing system? An escalation path? Or does it rely on someone noticing and caring?
How do we investigate? Do we have the tools, access, and expertise to dig deeper when something appears wrong? Or are we limited to what the NIDS surface shows us?
How do we coordinate with operations? When security needs to respond, who is consulted? How do we balance risk with system uptime? Who has the authority to make decisions? How do we improve? Are we tracking false positives? Are we running mock drills? Learning from incidents? Refining our detection logic and response playbooks over time?
If you can’t answer these questions with confidence, you don’t have a SOC. You have a sensor.
And that’s a problem worth solving.