How Retailers Can Improve Their Security Operations Centers (SOCs)

In 2026, retail is facing a perfect storm. Digital footprints have expanded. And the threat landscape has followed suit. Now, one in three consumers has been impacted by a retail cyberattack in the last year alone.

The risk is not just digital. In the physical world, organized retail crime (ORC) has surged, as well, leaving legacy security centers struggling to keep up. And so, we have just released a new deep dive into how modern Security Operations Centers (SOCs) are evolving to handle this dual threat to their assets, customers and reputations.

Why retailers are targets for digital and physical criminals

Retail remains one of the most important sectors in the global economy. A quarter of the U.S. workforce relies on the industry for its livelihood. And the sector contributes more than $5.3 trillion to annual GDP, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Retail is not just big. It is dynamic, too. And dynamic in 2026 means digital. Global retail e-commerce sales rose to $4.4 trillion in 2023. That was up from $1.3 trillion in 2014.

Despite the transformation, the sector has not evolved past the cyberthreat.

In fact, retail has become the number one target for cyber criminals. Fortinet estimates that nearly a quarter of cyberattacks are levied against retailers. And one in three consumers has been affected by retail cyberattacks in the last twelve months, according to the Retail Technology Show (RTS).

So, why is the sector so exposed?

Why retailers are so vulnerable to cyberattacks

The incentive for attackers is simple: high ROI. Cybersecurity expert Fletcher Davis paints retailers as data goldmines: “One breach can often yield a large amount of records that can be sold on dark web markets.”

Beyond the data bounty, operating behind a transnational shield emboldens attackers. As Darren Williams, CEO of BlackFog, explains: “Most cybergangs are geographically distributed and located in countries that have no reciprocal law enforcement agreements or cooperation with the United States.”

As a result, 67% of retailers report the involvement of a transnational group in thefts against their company during the past year. Cargo and supply-chain theft alone ballooned by 50% due to these syndicates.

This creates a perfect storm where criminals can strike with near-impunity, leading to:

• Logistical paralysis: Shutdowns of automated warehouses.
• Inventory darkness: Inability to track or locate missing products.
• Revenue hemorrhaging: Protracted outages of e-commerce platforms during peak windows.

Growing levels of retail crime

Unfortunately for the sector, cyberattacks are not the only security threats retailers face. Brick-and-mortar stores remain preeminent in the industry. Consequently, shoplifting remains an issue.

It is a challenge that appears to be getting worse. The National Retail Federation (NRF) and Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) decry “a visible change in the landscape of retail theft in terms of the frequency, scope and types of theft that occur.”

Then, there is organized retail crime (ORC), which the NRF defines as:

… theft or fraud activities conducted with the intent to convert illegally obtained merchandise, cargo, cash or cash equivalents into personal financial gain. It also must involve theft or fraud of multiple quantities, conducted in concert by two or more people. ORC typically involves multiple occurrences and may occur across several stores and jurisdictions.

But how significant is ORC? According to The Impact of Retail Theft & Violence, the scope is staggering:

• Growing ORC concern: 76% of retailers acknowledge that ORC-connected theft is a higher priority than last year.
• Incident surge: 93% increase in incidents compared to pre-pandemic.
• Dollar loss: 90% surge in dollar loss attributable to shoplifting.
• Frequency: Average of 177 incidents per day. Some retailers suffer over 1,000 incidents per day.

In Deloitte’s 2025 Retail Industry Outlook, over three-quarters of retail executives labeled rising cases of retail theft as one of the biggest industry hurdles.

The need for better Security Operations Center (SOC) capabilities

What can be done? One way to improve security and safety outcomes is for retailers to enhance the capabilities of their Security Operations Centers (SOCs).

As a refresher, SOCs serve as centralized units providing monitoring capabilities for the detection, escalation and recovery of security incidents on an organizational and technical level.

SOCs can come in many shapes and sizes. But typically, there are three types of SOCs:

1. In-house SOC: More popular among larger retailers who can afford to build and staff their own SOC with internal resources.
2. Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP): In which a retailer hires a third party to perform threat-monitoring, detection and response duties.
3. Mixed SOC: Some retailers opt for a combination of the two. They leverage external resources to upskill their in-house SOC. Retailers often gravitate toward the mixed SOC model to provide 24/7/365 coverage. This approach can lower overall expenditure, supplement security expertise and expedite setup.

The state of retail SOC technology

In retail, SOCs are versatile. They are used to field staff phone calls, triage equipment failures, respond to weather events and manage a wide array of security alarms. They might perform the simplest actions, like making emergency calls, to the most complex, like supply-chain logistics.

However, the bread and butter of an SOC is security operations. When a retail security incident is detected, it is the SOC that will most likely respond by containing the attack as soon as possible to mitigate damage, prevent data loss and/or safeguard the retailer’s reputation.

How do SOCs do it? During a security incident, the SOC team will seek to detect, analyze and respond, using a combination of technology solutions and a strong set of processes. To do so, SOC analysts must maintain situational awareness of events from the systems and networks they monitor.

SOC teams are not solely composed of analysts, though. They also include:

• Engineers: The architects, they provision and maintain the tech stack.
• Incident responders: The specialists, they handle escalated, complex forensics.
• Hunters: The proactive element, they search for hidden threats before triggering alarms.

Beyond reporting and escalation, other SOC tasks include:

• SIEM monitoring and alarming: The SOC uses Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools to aggregate log data from across a retailer’s network. When the system identifies a pattern that matches a known threat or an anomaly, it triggers an alarm for an analyst to investigate.
• Event management: Beyond alerts, the SOC also manages a constant stream of events. Events are normal occurrences that still require oversight. Occurrences that fall into this category include monitoring system access logs, high-value inventory movements and surges in web traffic during peak sales.
• Security incident ticket management: When an alarm is validated as a threat, it becomes a ticket. The SOC ensures that every incident is logged, categorized by severity and assigned to the correct owner.
• Incident handling: Once a ticket is opened, incident handling involves the specific steps taken to contain the threat, eradicate the cause and recover operations.

Challenges with SOCs in retail

SOCs are ubiquitous within the retail sector. According to estimates, nearly three-quarters of retailers have an SOC. However, retail SOCs face significant challenges. High among them is integration debt.

Legacy solutions rarely allow for agile change management. This makes even a minor technology update a costly, protracted project. Furthermore, many SOCs suffer from a fragmented ecosystem. A retailer may have purchased advanced tools for decision trees, mass alerts and business continuity. However, these tools often exist in silos.

This integration debt is only getting worse. SOCs are seeking to integrate AI tools with their legacy databases. While SOCs are trying to deploy AI agents in 2026, agentic AI cannot function properly in this setting when blocked by old, siloed databases.

The result: when a security alert (cyber, physical and/or blended) requires triage, too many systems in the SOC often lead to duplicative efforts. This lengthens the incident lifecycle, causing irreparable damage to the retailer.

SOC capabilities to consider for retailers

What retailers need is to consolidate functionality into a single, flexible solution dedicated to safeguarding people, assets and reputation. Here are the principal capabilities required to modernize a retail SOC:

Configuration and integration

Stop relying on vendor timelines. Retailers should seek a drag-and-drop platform that allows their SOC teams to update workflows internally. The right platform must seamlessly synchronize with your existing tech stack (SIEM, HRIS and IoT) via robust API capabilities to eliminate data silos.

Actionable collaboration

Technology should not inhibit communication. Instead, modern platforms must provide real-time messaging and multi-channel alerts. This allows teams to respond to incidents simultaneously while maintaining a single source of truth. Actionable collaboration ensures that as new information comes in, everyone, from the store manager to the C-suite, is looking at the same data.

Security incident management

To expedite response, use customizable workflows that trigger automated notifications. These workflows should assign tasks based on best-practice response plans. This ensures process standardization across multiple locations. Standardization reduces the need for custom responses to solve routine crises.

Intelligent reporting

Move beyond manual entry. Use resilience software to simplify the reporting of incidents, confidential tip-offs and hazards via QR codes or mobile apps. This allows for the capture of rich case notes and "Person of Interest" data to identify repeat offenders and root causes of disruption.

Mass crisis communications

During an emergency, speed is the only metric that matters. Therefore, your SOC needs a high-availability mass notification system that sends multimodal messages (SMS, voice, in-app push and email) in seconds. Advanced solutions will allow you to target specific roles or geo-fenced locations. This ensures the right message reaches the right people without causing unnecessary panic elsewhere.

Business continuity and planning

The SOC’s value extends beyond active emergencies. The platform should also be used in a business-as-usual manner for business impact analyses (BIA) and dependency mapping. By automating time-consuming approvals and recovery time tracking, the SOC ensures that IT recovery and business recovery stay perfectly aligned.

The need for integrated resilience in 2026

In 2026, the retail business is booming. But the dual threat of cyber and physical crime has never been more sophisticated. Retail SOC teams have their work cut out for them. Yet, they cannot win with fragmented, legacy tools.

To manage any retail incident, from a minor customer complaint to a major transnational cyberattack, retailers need a single, integrated platform.

Ready to see how Noggin can transform your security operations? Request a demonstration to see Noggin in action.