?? FortiSOAR Playbooks: Automating Phishing, Malware Triage & Incident Escalation ??
UMESH KUMAR M
Secops Implementation Engineer(WAZUH | FORTISIEM & FORTISOAR) | M.tech in Cybersecurity
Modern SOCs deal with high alert volumes, making manual threat handling inefficient. FortiSOAR playbooks automate critical security workflows, reducing response time and improving efficiency.
This article dives into common playbook use cases (Phishing, Malware Triage, Incident Escalation), playbook optimization, and troubleshooting techniques to maximize FortiSOAR’s capabilities. ?
?? Common Playbook Use Cases
?? 1. Phishing Investigation & Response
Challenge: Security teams receive hundreds of phishing alerts daily. Manually analyzing emails for malicious links and attachments is time-consuming.
Playbook Actions:
? Extract email headers, attachments, and URLs for analysis
? Query threat intelligence sources (VirusTotal, FortiGuard, AbuseIPDB)
? Check URL reputation and scan attachments in a sandbox
? Auto-respond to users with a verdict: Malicious, Suspicious, or Benign
? If confirmed malicious, auto-delete emails and block senders
?? Troubleshooting Issues:
?? Issue: Playbook fails to extract attachments
?? Check if email security integration is configured properly
?? Validate API keys for email retrieval
?? Issue: False positives from phishing reports
?? Implement allowlists for internal domains
?? Use AI/ML-based anomaly detection
?? 2. Malware Triage & Containment
Challenge: A single malware-infected endpoint can lead to lateral movement and data exfiltration. Quick isolation is key.
Playbook Actions:
? Trigger EDR scans for IOCs like hashes, IPs, and domains
? Correlate logs from SIEM, EDR, and Firewall for deeper insight
? Automatically quarantine infected endpoints if risk is high
? Notify analysts with attack context mapped to MITRE ATT&CK
?? Troubleshooting Issues: ?? Issue: Playbook doesn't trigger EDR scan
?? Ensure EDR API authentication is valid
?? Check playbook execution logs for errors
?? Issue: Delayed endpoint isolation
?? Optimize API calls to reduce response time
?? Check if network segmentation rules allow FortiSOAR to send commands
?? 3. Incident Escalation & SOC Automation
Challenge: Security teams struggle with alert fatigue and inefficient escalation workflows.
Playbook Actions:
? Auto-prioritize alerts based on severity and impact
? If high severity, escalate to L2/L3 analysts and create a Jira/ServiceNow ticket
? Trigger notification alerts via email, Slack, or MS Teams
? Enrich incident details with previous attack patterns and threat intelligence
?? Troubleshooting Issues:
?? Issue: False alarms clogging SOC workflow
?? Implement tunable correlation rules
?? Use machine learning-based anomaly detection
?? Issue: Delayed escalations
?? Optimize API connections to ticketing systems
?? Ensure analyst on-call schedules are correctly mapped
?? Playbook Optimization: Reducing False Positives & Improving Efficiency
?? Reducing False Positives
?? Use threat intelligence enrichment to validate alerts before acting
?? Implement behavior-based detection instead of signature-based alerts
?? Use FortiSOAR’s confidence scoring for incidents
?? Improving Automation Efficiency
?? Batch API calls to minimize execution time
?? Use decision trees instead of multiple conditional branches
?? Regularly fine-tune thresholds for incident classification
?? Troubleshooting Playbook Performance Issues
?? Playbook Execution Lagging?
?? Check system resource usage (CPU, RAM)
?? Optimize API calls to reduce latency
?? Failed Integrations?
?? Validate FortiSOAR connectors and check logs
?? Ensure API keys and authentication tokens are active
?? Unreliable Alert Correlation?
?? Fine-tune SIEM log parsing and correlation rules
?? Map TTPs correctly using the MITRE ATT&CK module
?? Why FortiSOAR Playbooks Matter?
?? Faster Threat Response – Reduce manual workload
??? Improved Incident Accuracy – Lower false positives
?? Enhanced SOC Efficiency – Automate tedious tasks
#FortiSOAR #SecurityAutomation #IncidentResponse #Phishing #MalwareTriage #SOC #ThreatIntelligence #SIEM #CyberSecurity #Fortinet ??