What is the difference between a SOC and a NOC?

Managed cybersecurity services rely on two distinct monitoring functions: a SOC (security operations center) and a NOC (network operations center). A SOC watches for security threats such as unauthorized access, malware and data exfiltration, while a NOC monitors network performance, uptime and hardware health across servers, firewalls and connected devices.

SOC and NOC functions compared:

• Threat detection vs. performance monitoring: A SOC analyst investigates alerts tied to intrusion attempts and suspicious login activity, while a NOC technician tracks bandwidth usage, server uptime and hardware failures.
• If a firewall log shows repeated failed login attempts from an unfamiliar IP address, then the SOC escalates the alert for investigation, while a NOC would only flag that same firewall if it stopped passing traffic entirely.
• Incident response: SOC teams follow defined incident response procedures to contain and remediate active threats, whereas NOC teams follow escalation procedures to restore service availability.
• Combined coverage: Rectitude pairs SOC and NOC monitoring so security incidents and performance issues are both caught around the clock rather than falling into a coverage gap between the two functions.

To see how these functions differ from older approaches, read our answer to this related question: How is managed cybersecurity different from basic antivirus software?