---
name: building-soc-metrics-and-kpi-tracking
description: 'Builds SOC performance metrics and KPI tracking dashboards measuring Mean Time to Detect (MTTD), Mean Time to
  Respond (MTTR), alert quality ratios, analyst productivity, and detection coverage using SIEM data. Use when SOC leadership
  needs operational visibility, continuous improvement tracking, or executive-level reporting on security operations effectiveness.

  '
domain: cybersecurity
subdomain: soc-operations
tags:
- soc
- metrics
- kpi
- mttd
- mttr
- dashboard
- reporting
- continuous-improvement
version: '1.0'
author: mahipal
license: Apache-2.0
nist_ai_rmf:
- MEASURE-2.7
- MAP-5.1
- MANAGE-2.4
atlas_techniques:
- AML.T0070
- AML.T0066
- AML.T0082
nist_csf:
- DE.CM-01
- DE.AE-02
- RS.MA-01
- DE.AE-06
---
# Building SOC Metrics and KPI Tracking

## When to Use

Use this skill when:
- SOC leadership needs data-driven visibility into operational performance
- Continuous improvement programs require baseline measurements and trend tracking
- Executive reporting demands quantified security posture and ROI metrics
- Staffing decisions need objective workload and capacity data
- Compliance audits require documented SOC performance evidence

**Do not use** metrics as punitive measures against analysts — metrics should drive process improvement, not individual performance management.

## Prerequisites

- SIEM with 90+ days of incident and alert disposition data
- Incident ticketing system (ServiceNow, Jira) with timestamp data for incident lifecycle
- Analyst shift schedules and staffing data
- ATT&CK Navigator for detection coverage tracking
- Dashboard platform (Splunk, Grafana, or Power BI)

## Workflow

### Step 1: Define Core SOC Metrics Framework

Establish the key metrics aligned to NIST CSF functions:

| Metric | Definition | Target | NIST CSF |
|--------|-----------|--------|----------|
| MTTD | Time from threat occurrence to SOC detection | <15 min | Detect |
| MTTA | Time from alert to analyst acknowledgment | <5 min | Respond |
| MTTI | Time from acknowledgment to investigation start | <10 min | Respond |
| MTTC | Time from investigation to containment | <1 hour | Respond |
| MTTR | Time from detection to full resolution | <4 hours | Recover |
| FP Rate | Percentage of false positive alerts | <30% | Detect |
| TP Rate | Percentage of true positive alerts | >40% | Detect |
| Coverage | ATT&CK techniques with active detection | >60% | Detect |
| Dwell Time | Attacker time in network before detection | <24 hours | Detect |
| Escalation Rate | % of Tier 1 alerts escalated to Tier 2/3 | 15-25% | Respond |

### Step 2: Implement MTTD/MTTR Measurement

**Mean Time to Detect (MTTD):**
```spl
index=notable earliest=-30d status_label="Resolved*"
| eval mttd_seconds = _time - orig_time
| where mttd_seconds > 0 AND mttd_seconds < 86400  --- Exclude data quality issues
| stats avg(mttd_seconds) AS avg_mttd,
        median(mttd_seconds) AS med_mttd,
        perc90(mttd_seconds) AS p90_mttd,
        perc95(mttd_seconds) AS p95_mttd
  by urgency
| eval avg_mttd_min = round(avg_mttd / 60, 1)
| eval med_mttd_min = round(med_mttd / 60, 1)
| eval p90_mttd_min = round(p90_mttd / 60, 1)
| table urgency, avg_mttd_min, med_mttd_min, p90_mttd_min
```

**Mean Time to Respond (MTTR):**
```spl
index=notable earliest=-30d status_label="Resolved*"
| eval mttr_seconds = status_end - _time
| where mttr_seconds > 0 AND mttr_seconds < 604800  --- <7 days
| stats avg(mttr_seconds) AS avg_mttr,
        median(mttr_seconds) AS med_mttr,
        perc90(mttr_seconds) AS p90_mttr
  by urgency
| eval avg_mttr_hours = round(avg_mttr / 3600, 1)
| eval med_mttr_hours = round(med_mttr / 3600, 1)
| eval p90_mttr_hours = round(p90_mttr / 3600, 1)
| table urgency, avg_mttr_hours, med_mttr_hours, p90_mttr_hours
```

**MTTD/MTTR Trend Over Time:**
```spl
index=notable earliest=-90d status_label="Resolved*"
| eval mttd_min = (_time - orig_time) / 60
| eval mttr_hours = (status_end - _time) / 3600
| bin _time span=1w
| stats avg(mttd_min) AS avg_mttd_min, avg(mttr_hours) AS avg_mttr_hours,
        count AS incidents by _time
| table _time, incidents, avg_mttd_min, avg_mttr_hours
```

### Step 3: Measure Alert Quality and Analyst Productivity

**Alert Disposition Analysis:**
```spl
index=notable earliest=-30d
| stats count AS total,
        sum(eval(if(status_label="Resolved - True Positive", 1, 0))) AS tp,
        sum(eval(if(status_label="Resolved - False Positive", 1, 0))) AS fp,
        sum(eval(if(status_label="Resolved - Benign", 1, 0))) AS benign,
        sum(eval(if(status_label="New" OR status_label="In Progress", 1, 0))) AS pending
| eval tp_rate = round(tp / total * 100, 1)
| eval fp_rate = round(fp / total * 100, 1)
| eval signal_noise = round(tp / (fp + 0.01), 2)
| table total, tp, fp, benign, pending, tp_rate, fp_rate, signal_noise
```

**Analyst Productivity Metrics:**
```spl
index=notable earliest=-30d status_label="Resolved*"
| stats count AS alerts_resolved,
        avg(eval((status_end - status_transition_time) / 60)) AS avg_triage_min,
        dc(rule_name) AS unique_rule_types
  by owner
| eval alerts_per_day = round(alerts_resolved / 30, 1)
| sort - alerts_resolved
| table owner, alerts_resolved, alerts_per_day, avg_triage_min, unique_rule_types
```

**Shift-Based Workload Distribution:**
```spl
index=notable earliest=-30d
| eval hour = strftime(_time, "%H")
| eval shift = case(
    hour >= 6 AND hour < 14, "Day (06-14)",
    hour >= 14 AND hour < 22, "Swing (14-22)",
    1=1, "Night (22-06)"
  )
| stats count AS alerts, dc(owner) AS analysts by shift
| eval alerts_per_analyst = round(alerts / analysts / 30, 1)
| table shift, alerts, analysts, alerts_per_analyst
```

### Step 4: Track Detection Coverage

**ATT&CK Coverage Score:**
```spl
| inputlookup detection_rules_attack_mapping.csv
| stats dc(technique_id) AS covered_techniques by tactic
| join tactic type=left [
    | inputlookup attack_techniques_total.csv
    | stats dc(technique_id) AS total_techniques by tactic
  ]
| eval coverage_pct = round(covered_techniques / total_techniques * 100, 1)
| sort tactic
| table tactic, covered_techniques, total_techniques, coverage_pct
```

**Data Source Coverage:**
```spl
| inputlookup expected_data_sources.csv
| join data_source type=left [
    | tstats count where index=* by sourcetype
    | rename sourcetype AS data_source
    | eval status = "Active"
  ]
| eval source_status = if(isnotnull(status), "Collecting", "MISSING")
| stats count by source_status
| table source_status, count
```

### Step 5: Build Executive Reporting Dashboard

**Monthly SOC Executive Summary:**
```spl
--- Incident summary by category
index=notable earliest=-30d status_label="Resolved*"
| stats count by urgency
| eval order = case(urgency="critical", 1, urgency="high", 2, urgency="medium", 3,
                    urgency="low", 4, urgency="informational", 5)
| sort order

--- Month-over-month comparison
index=notable earliest=-60d
| eval period = if(_time > relative_time(now(), "-30d"), "This Month", "Last Month")
| stats count by period, urgency
| chart sum(count) AS incidents by urgency, period

--- Top 5 incident categories
index=notable earliest=-30d status_label="Resolved - True Positive"
| top rule_name limit=5
| table rule_name, count, percent
```

**Security Posture Scorecard:**
```spl
| makeresults
| eval metrics = mvappend(
    "MTTD: 8.3 min (Target: <15 min) | STATUS: GREEN",
    "MTTR: 3.2 hours (Target: <4 hours) | STATUS: GREEN",
    "FP Rate: 27% (Target: <30%) | STATUS: GREEN",
    "Detection Coverage: 64% (Target: >60%) | STATUS: GREEN",
    "Analyst Utilization: 78% (Target: 60-80%) | STATUS: GREEN",
    "Incident Backlog: 12 (Target: <20) | STATUS: GREEN"
  )
| mvexpand metrics
| table metrics
```

### Step 6: Implement Continuous Improvement Tracking

Track improvement initiatives and their impact:

```spl
--- Improvement initiative tracking
| inputlookup soc_improvement_initiatives.csv
| eval status_color = case(
    status="Completed", "green",
    status="In Progress", "yellow",
    status="Planned", "gray"
  )
| table initiative, start_date, target_date, status, metric_impact, baseline, current
```

Example initiatives:
```csv
initiative,start_date,target_date,status,metric_impact,baseline,current
Risk-Based Alerting,2024-01-15,2024-03-15,Completed,Alert Volume,-84%,287/day
Sigma Rule Library,2024-02-01,2024-04-01,In Progress,ATT&CK Coverage,61%,64%
SOAR Phishing Playbook,2024-02-15,2024-03-30,In Progress,Phishing MTTR,45min,18min
Analyst Training Program,2024-01-01,2024-06-30,In Progress,TP Rate,31%,41%
```

## Key Concepts

| Term | Definition |
|------|-----------|
| **MTTD** | Mean Time to Detect — average time from threat occurrence to SOC alert generation |
| **MTTR** | Mean Time to Respond — average time from detection to incident resolution |
| **MTTA** | Mean Time to Acknowledge — average time from alert generation to analyst assignment |
| **Signal-to-Noise Ratio** | Ratio of true positive alerts to total alerts — higher is better |
| **Dwell Time** | Duration an attacker remains undetected in the environment — key indicator of detection effectiveness |
| **Analyst Utilization** | Percentage of analyst time spent on productive investigation vs. overhead tasks |

## Tools & Systems

- **Splunk Dashboard Studio**: Advanced visualization framework for building interactive SOC metric dashboards
- **Grafana**: Open-source analytics and visualization platform supporting multiple data sources
- **Power BI**: Microsoft business intelligence tool for executive-level reporting and trend analysis
- **ATT&CK Navigator**: MITRE tool for visualizing detection coverage as layered heatmaps
- **ServiceNow Performance Analytics**: ITSM analytics module for tracking incident lifecycle metrics

## Common Scenarios

- **Quarterly Business Review**: Present MTTD/MTTR trends, detection coverage growth, and alert quality improvements
- **Staffing Justification**: Use workload metrics to justify additional analyst headcount or shift adjustments
- **Tool ROI Assessment**: Compare alert quality and response times before and after new tool deployment
- **Compliance Evidence**: Provide documented SOC performance metrics for ISO 27001 or SOC 2 audits
- **Vendor Comparison**: Benchmark SOC metrics against industry peers using surveys (SANS, Ponemon)

## Output Format

```
SOC PERFORMANCE REPORT — March 2024
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

KEY METRICS:
  Metric              Current    Target     Trend    Status
  MTTD                8.3 min    <15 min    -12%     GREEN
  MTTR                3.2 hrs    <4 hrs     -18%     GREEN
  FP Rate             27%        <30%       -5%      GREEN
  TP Rate             41%        >40%       +3%      GREEN
  ATT&CK Coverage     64%        >60%       +3%      GREEN
  Alerts/Analyst/Day  24         <50        -84%     GREEN

INCIDENT SUMMARY:
  Total Incidents:     147 (Critical: 3, High: 23, Medium: 78, Low: 43)
  Avg Resolution:      3.2 hours (Critical: 1.8h, High: 2.9h, Medium: 4.1h)
  SLA Compliance:      94% (Target: >90%)

IMPROVEMENT HIGHLIGHTS:
  [1] RBA deployment reduced daily alerts from 1,847 to 287 (-84%)
  [2] New Sigma rules added 12 ATT&CK techniques to coverage
  [3] SOAR phishing playbook reduced phishing MTTR by 60%

AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT:
  [1] Lateral movement detection coverage at 58% (below 60% target)
  [2] Night shift MTTD 23% slower than day shift
  [3] 4 critical vulnerability scan tickets overdue on SLA
```
