How I taught an AI agent to work on the SOC front line: four stages of BlueSec1

The author shares their experience participating in the BlueSec1 competition, which challenged participants to build an AI agent capable of automating the work of Tier 1 SOC analysts. Despite the author's background in vulnerability management rather than incident response, they secured first place in the open stage of the competition. The article details four key stages of the agent's development, including training the model to understand security alert contexts and refining decision-making logic. The author emphasizes the importance of an iterative approach and treating the AI as a partner to effectively interpret complex security signals. This piece is a valuable resource for cybersecurity professionals and developers interested in integrating LLMs into SOC workflows to improve threat response times.