Microsoft Solutions Partner for Security
Managed SOC Services
Microsoft Sentinel + Defender XDR, SIEM + SOAR + XDR + UEBA
Governance & Compliance, 8×5, 16×5 & 24×7 monitoring options
Built across the major agent ecosystems
Copilot Studio
Azure AI Foundry
AWS Bedrock
Google Vertex AI
OpenAI
LangChain / LangGraph
Managed SOC Security Challenges
01
Sentinel deployed but nobody monitoring the alerts 24/7?
02
Security team too small to investigate every alert — alert fatigue?
03
Compliance requires 24/7 security monitoring but you can’t staff it?
Want a SOC but hiring 6+ security analysts is impossible?
What We Do
Security Operations Without the In-House SOC Overhead
01
24/7 monitoring, always
Your Sentinel and Defender alerts monitored around the clock — not just business hours. Security threats don’t wait until Monday.
02
Microsoft-stack security analysts
Our SOC analysts specialise in Sentinel, Defender XDR, Entra ID, and Security Copilot — not a generic MSSP using your tools superficially.
03
Investigate, not just alert
We don’t forward alerts — we investigate them: correlate signals, determine severity, identify scope, and recommend or execute response.
Threat hunting, proactively
We hunt for threats that evade automated detection — using KQL, Security Copilot, and threat intelligence to find what rules miss.
05
Copilot-accelerated SOC
Security Copilot accelerates investigation: incident summarisation in seconds, natural-language queries, and guided response — making our analysts faster.
06
Lower SOC operating costs
Get managed SOC coverage without the hiring, training, and retention overhead of building a 24/7 internal team.
Our Services & Capabilities
01
Essential Protect — Foundational SOC Monitoring
8×5 business-hours monitoring
Best for: Small businesses beginning SOC adoption and needing foundational protection with Microsoft Defender, Sentinel, Entra ID, and basic governance support.
- 8×5 business-hours alert monitoring for Sentinel and/or Defender signals
- Alert triage and false-positive filtering
- Critical incident escalation (email + phone)
- Monthly security summary report
- Business-hours investigation (next business day for non-critical)
- Sentinel analytics rule management (built-in rules)
02
Advanced Guard — Proactive Detection and Response
16×5 extended-hours monitoring
Best for: Mid-sized organizations with hybrid workloads that need extended coverage, managed response guidance, KQL-driven threat hunting, custom alert workflows, and ISO/NIST-aligned reporting.
- Everything in Essential, plus:
- 4-hour SLA for critical incident investigation
- Full incident investigation (root cause, scope, impact)
- Incident response actions (device isolation, account disable, block IP)
- Custom Sentinel analytics rule development and tuning
- Bi-weekly threat briefing
- Threat intelligence integration
- Monthly security review meeting
03
Elite Shield — Full Lifecycle SOC and Compliance
24×7 continuous monitoring
Best for: SMEs and regulated organizations that need full SOC coverage, custom SOAR automation, continuous threat hunting, dedicated analyst support, Defender for Cloud, Intune integration, and compliance dashboards for frameworks such as ISO, HIPAA, and GDPR.
- Everything in Advanced Guard, plus:
- 1-hour SLA for critical incidents
- Dedicated security analyst team (named contacts)
- Proactive threat hunting (weekly, KQL + Copilot)
- Security Copilot–accelerated investigation
- SOAR playbook development and management
- Quarterly security posture review and Secure Score improvement
- Compliance reporting support (SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001)
- Executive security dashboard
Implementation Approach
| Phase | Focus Area | Services |
|---|---|---|
Discovery & Assessment | Infrastructure, data sources, risk posture | Evaluate the current environment, identify data sources, and define the SOC architecture. |
Foundation Setup | Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Sentinel, Entra ID | Configure SIEM, XDR, and identity layers for unified monitoring. |
Integration & Automation | SOAR, Logic Apps, threat intelligence | Integrate data sources, enable playbooks, and automate incident handling workflows. |
Technology Stack & Technical Capabilities
The managed SOC is built around a modular security operations model aligned to Microsoft Zero Trust principles: visibility, automation, integration, governance, and compliance. It combines SIEM, SOAR, XDR, UEBA, identity protection, endpoint management, data protection, threat intelligence, and compliance reporting into one operating model.
01
SIEM: Microsoft Sentinel, Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Splunk
02
SOAR: Sentinel Playbooks and Logic Apps
03
XDR: Microsoft Defender XDR Suite and Trend Micro Vision One
Identity and access: Entra ID, Conditional Access, SSO with Okta, Entra External ID
05
Governance and compliance: Microsoft Purview, Azure Policy, Compliance Manager, Dell Archer GRC
06
Threat intelligence: Defender Threat Intelligence and MISP
07
Production readiness: connector health checks, ingestion validation, alert rule tuning, escalation testing, runbook approval, reporting dashboard validation, and go-live signoff.
08
09
Device and endpoint management: Microsoft Intune and Defender for Endpoint
10
Data protection and DLP: Microsoft Purview DLP and sensitivity labels
Service Tier Comparison
| SLA metric | Essential Protect | Advanced Guard | Elite Shield |
|---|---|---|---|
Critical incident response | Escalation within 30 min | Investigation within 4 hrs | Investigation within 1 hr |
High incident response | Next business day | 8 business hours | 4 hours |
Alert triage | 8×5 business-hours monitoring | 16×5 extended-hours monitoring | 24×7 continuous monitoring |
Investigation depth | Triage + escalation | Full investigation + response | Full investigation + hunting |
Threat hunting | Not included | Quarterly | Weekly |
Sentinel rule management | Built-in rules | Custom rules + tuning | Advanced rules + SOAR |
Reporting | Monthly summary | Monthly + bi-weekly briefing | Monthly + weekly + exec dashboard |
Coverage | 8×5 monitoring | 16×5 monitoring + response guidance | 24×7 monitoring + response + hunting |
Pricing calculator note: Base managed SOC support starts at $1,200 per month for 40 hours. Additional support should be calculated in 20-hour increments thereafter. Final scope may vary based on monitored data sources, alert volume, response authority, reporting cadence, and compliance requirements.
What Our SOC Delivers
01
24/7 Security Monitoring
We monitor Sentinel alerts, Defender XDR incidents, and Entra ID anomalies around the clock — real-time, not batch. Every alert triaged, classified, and actioned.
- 24/7
- Sentinel
- Defender
- Entra ID
- Real-time
02
Alert Triage & Investigation
We triage every alert: filter false positives, correlate signals across Defender + Sentinel + Entra, determine severity, and investigate — not just forward.
- Triage
- Correlation
- Severity
- Investigation
- Not just forwarding
03
Incident Response
- Device isolation
- Account disable
- Block IP
- Coordinated response
04
Threat Hunting
We proactively hunt for threats that evade automated detection — using KQL queries, Security Copilot, and threat intelligence to find what rules miss.
- KQL hunting
- Security Copilot
- Threat intel
- Proactive
05
Sentinel & Defender Management
We manage your security platform ongoing: analytics rules, detection tuning, SOAR playbooks, data connector health, and ingestion optimisation.
- Rule management
- Detection tuning
- SOAR
- Connector health
06
Security Reporting & Compliance
We provide security reporting: incident summaries, threat trends, posture metrics, and compliance support (SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001).
- Monthly reports
- Trends
- Posture metrics
- Compliance support
Need Sentinel or Defender deployed first?
Methodology, Setup Rollout, and Continuous Optimization
Free SOC assessment
We assess your Sentinel and Defender environment, alert volume, and security requirements to recommend the right SOC tier.
Platform review & tuning (Week 1–2)
We configure Sentinel, Defender, Intune, Entra ID logging, and Conditional Access monitoring, then validate the environment.
Runbook development
We define incident runbooks, escalation contacts, response authority, communications, and customer approval requirements.
SOC goes live
We tune analytics rules, alert logic, SOAR playbooks, dashboards, compliance settings, and onboarding before go-live.
Continuous improvement
We continuously tune detections, integrate threat intelligence, review connectors, refine reporting, and support security posture improvements.
2-week setup overview:
Start with a Free SOC Assessment. No obligation.
Why Choose Star Knowledge
| Criteria | Star Knowledge Managed SOC | In-House SOC | Generic MSSP |
|---|---|---|---|
Microsoft expertise | Sentinel + Defender + Copilot native | Depends on hires | Generic tools, superficial |
24/7 coverage | Included | 6+ analysts needed | Included |
Annual cost |
$60K–$480K/yr | $500K–$1M+ (salaries alone) | $50K–$300K/yr |
Investigation depth | Full (Microsoft-native) | Depends on skills | Triage + escalate (limited) |
Threat hunting | Included (Standard/Premium) | If staff available | Rarely included |
Security Copilot | Integrated (Premium) | If licensed + trained | Not available |
Time to operational | 2–3 weeks | 6–12 months (hiring) | 4–8 weeks |
Case Studies
Managed SOC for a Financial Services Firm
Deployed Sentinel and Defender but only had 2 security staff — couldn’t monitor 24/7, alerts accumulating unreviewed.
Standard managed SOC: 24/7 monitoring, alert investigation, 4-hour critical SLA, incident response, and monthly security reviews.
Healthcare provider, 2,000+ users, HIPAA requirements.
HIPAA required continuous security monitoring and incident response capability — building an in-house SOC was cost-prohibitive.
Premium managed SOC: dedicated analysts, weekly threat hunting, Copilot-accelerated investigation, HIPAA compliance reporting.
Technology company, 500+ users, existing generic MSSP.
Generic MSSP forwarding Sentinel alerts without investigation — client doing the investigation themselves. Paying for alerting, not a SOC.
Replaced with Standard managed SOC: Microsoft-native analysts, full investigation, incident response, and detection rule tuning.
Financial Services
Healthcare
HIPAA-mandated security monitoring
Technology
Insurance
Threat monitoring and cyber risk management
Manufacturing
Multi-site security monitoring
Professional Services
Client data protection monitoring
Retail
PCI-relevant security monitoring
Government
Compliance-mandated SOC operations
From Essential monitoring for 200 users to a Premium SOC with dedicated analysts and weekly threat hunting for 5,000+.
Insights
Freshness Signal: Managed SOC in 2026
In 2026, every organisation with Sentinel and Defender deployed needs someone watching the alerts 24/7. Building an in-house SOC requires 6+ security analysts (to cover 24/7 shifts), a SOC manager, tools, and continuous training — $500K–$1M+/year before you’ve caught a single threat. A managed SOC provides the same monitoring, investigation, and response capability at a fraction of the cost, staffed by analysts who specialise in Microsoft security. Security Copilot is accelerating managed SOC operations — incidents that took 45 minutes to investigate now take 5, making managed SOC more effective than ever.
01
24/7 is the minimum — attackers don’t work business hours; alerts at 3am Saturday need investigation, not a que
02
03
Can our internal IT team handle security monitoring?
For business hours, possibly. For 24/7, almost certainly not — unless your IT team has 6+ security-trained staff willing to work shifts. And monitoring is only the start: investigation, response, and hunting require specialised skills that most IT generalists don’t have. A managed SOC costs less than two full-time security analysts and provides 24/7 coverage with specialised expertise.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Managed SOC?
A Security Operations Center operated by Star Knowledge on your behalf — monitoring Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR alerts, investigating threats, coordinating response, supporting threat hunting, and producing security reports based on the selected coverage tier.
What are the three tiers?
Yes, the managed SOC operates on your Microsoft security environment. If Sentinel, Defender, Entra ID, Intune, or required data connectors are not ready, Star Knowledge can first complete the setup and tuning work before transitioning into managed monitoring.
Do we need Sentinel and Defender deployed first?
Yes, the managed SOC operates on your Microsoft security environment. If Sentinel, Defender, Entra ID, Intune, or required data connectors are not ready, Star Knowledge can first complete the setup and tuning work before transitioning into managed monitoring.
How quickly can the managed SOC start?
Typical onboarding takes about 2 weeks once access, licensing, data sources, escalation contacts, and implementation prerequisites are confirmed. Week 1 focuses on setup; Week 2 focuses on tuning, dashboards, runbooks, and go-live validation.
How is this different from your Sentinel/Defender consulting?
Sentinel and Defender consulting DEPLOYS the security platform. Managed SOC OPERATES it ongoing — 24/7 monitoring, investigation, response, and hunting. Deploy first, then manage.
Do your analysts respond to incidents or just alert us?
We investigate AND respond: device isolation, account disabling, IP blocking, and session revocation for confirmed threats. Business-critical actions (like shutting down a server) are coordinated with your team per the runbook.
How does Security Copilot enhance the managed SOC?
Copilot summarises incidents in seconds, answers investigation questions in natural language, generates KQL for hunting, and explains response actions. Premium tier SOC analysts use Copilot as standard, making investigation 5x faster.
What compliance requirements does the managed SOC support?
SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and other frameworks that require continuous security monitoring, incident response capability, and security reporting. We provide compliance-aligned reports and evidence.
Book My Free SOC Assessment
Tell us the task you have in mind. We’ll assess whether an agent suits it, at what autonomy level, and what the first step should be.
- No cost, no obligation
- Typically responds within 4 business hours
- Confidential — your data isn't shared
- Microsoft Solutions Partner for Security
Typically responds within 8 business hours · Confidential