Overcoming Security Alert Fatigue

by Brandon Rochat, Cybersecurity expert and Cybereason Regional Sales Director, Africa

Brandon Rochat

Alert fatigue represents more than a mere inconvenience for Security Operations Centre (SOC) teams; it poses a tangible threat to enterprise security. When analysts confront a deluge of thousands of alerts daily, each necessitating triage, investigation, and correlation, valuable time is easily squandered on false positives, potentially overlooking genuine indicators of an enterprise-wide data breach.

On average, SOC teams contend with nearly 500 investigation-worthy endpoint security alerts each week, with ensuing investigations consuming 65% of their time. Compounding the issue, security teams grapple with under-resourcing, understaffing, and the burden of manual processes.

This is according to a recent Cybereason whitepaper titled 'Eliminate Alert Fatigue: A Guide to more Efficient Effective SOC Teams '.

These hurdles not only frustrate SOC team members, leading to stress, burnout, and turnover, but also detrimentally impact the organisation's overall security posture. An operation-centric approach is imperative to effectively address these challenges, enabling the correlation of alerts, identification of root causes, provision of complete visibility into attack timelines, and simultaneous automation of tasks to enhance analyst efficiency significantly.

The relentless barrage of security alerts inundating SOC teams poses more than just a nuisance; it constitutes a genuine threat to enterprise security. The phenomenon known as alert fatigue not only overwhelms analysts but also compromises the ability to discern genuine threats amidst the noise, potentially leading to catastrophic consequences for organisational security.

At the core of alert fatigue lies information overload, exacerbated by the design of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms that prioritise visibility over discernment. An oversensitive SIEM inundates analysts with alerts for even the slightest anomalies, drowning them in a sea of data without clear indications of genuine threats.

Moreover, manual processes further impede efficiency, forcing analysts to navigate across disparate tools and siloed systems, amplifying the challenge of alert fatigue.

The consequences of alert fatigue extend far beyond mere inconvenience; they engender unacceptable outcomes for organisational security. Analysts, overwhelmed by the deluge of alerts and burdened by manual review processes, find themselves with insufficient time to focus on genuine threats, leading to critical detections being overlooked or delayed.

This not only prolongs response and remediation times but also increases the likelihood of undetected attacks, amplifying the damage inflicted upon the organisation.

To address the scourge of alert fatigue and enhance SOC efficiency, a paradigm shift is imperative. Enter the Cybereason Malicious Operation (MalOp) Detection, a groundbreaking approach that transcends traditional alert-centric models.

By contextualising alerts within the broader narrative of malicious operations, the MalOp provides analysts with a comprehensive view of attacks, correlating data across all impacted endpoints to streamline investigations and response efforts.

Central to the MalOp approach is the automation of mundane tasks, empowering analysts to focus their efforts on strategic analysis rather than laborious manual processes. By understanding the full narrative of an attack, Cybereason facilitates tailored response playbooks, enabling swift and decisive action with a single click, without sacrificing the necessity of human intervention.

Real-world success stories attest to the efficacy of the MalOp approach, with organisations experiencing exponential improvements in operational effectiveness and efficiency. By transitioning from an alert-centric to an operation-centric model, SOC teams can overcome the scourge of alert fatigue and bolster organisational security against evolving threats.

In essence, overcoming alert fatigue requires a holistic approach that combines advanced technology with human expertise, empowering SOC teams to stay ahead of adversaries and safeguard organisational assets.

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