Benjamin Kovacevic is the author of Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response for Security Analysts we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Benjamin: We researched around the topic and realized that there aren’t any materials that will cover SOAR as a topic and introduce it to security analysts.
Q: What is the name of your book?
Benjamin: Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response for Security Analysts.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Benjamin: As I already had necessary knowledge around SOAR in Microsoft Sentinel, I had strong background in it. But I used time to research in depth other SOAR offerings and to analyze how other solutions works.
Q: What key takeaways do you want readers to come away with from the book?
Benjamin: Why SOAR/Automation is such necessity in SOCs and how it can help to improve Mean Time To Acknowledge (MTTA) and Mean Time To Respond (MTTR).
Q: Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Benjamin: As my main focus is on Microsoft Sentinel offering, you can follow Microsoft Sentinel blog – https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sentinel-blog/bg-p/MicrosoftSentinelBlog. But readers can find blogs from other SOAR tools like Google Chronicle SOAR, Splunk SOAR, Palo Alto SOAR, etc.
Q. Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Benjamin: The main challenge was to cover other SOAR offerings in the same depth as Microsoft Sentinel and to have objective writing on the topic in Chapter 4.
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Benjamin: I had a amazing support from the Packt team, and this book wouldn’t be half as good without their help.
Q. Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Benjamin: By the research, there is no book that is covering this topic in depth – from beginners approach to SAOR to hands-on examples how to create automations.
Q. What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?
Benjamin: Cyber-security, SIEM, SOAR, XDR.
Q. What advice would you give to readers jumping into this technology? Do you have any top tips?
Benjamin: While book will help many to jump start in the technology, hands-on approach working with automations will help readers to tackle the topic better.
Q. What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Benjamin: SOAR or any kind of automation will play a big role in cybersecurity as we have big increase in security incidents that SOC Analysts cannot cover on it’s own. We will need help of automation with ML/AI to tackle upcoming hurdles.
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Benjamin: As it was my first book, I learned from my mistakes quickly and of course with the help of Packt team. It was amazing journey from where I learned to appreciate other authors more as I know how much work authors are putting into making the books.
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Benjamin: I actually don’t follow specific journal but more do research using search engines on topics I want to learn. I don’t like to read only opinion covered in one blog, but read many blogs. I also follow many people from the industry on LinkedIn and read what they are sharing. As all technologies are advancing, it is harder and harder to be up-to-date.
Q. Would you like to share your social handles? If so, mention them below.
Benjamin: Sure. Here you go: LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminkovacevic/.
Q: What is that one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Benjamin: Use any help offered. It actually helped me a lot to remove stress and to focus more on writing then on things others can help me with more.
You can find Benjamin’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
