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THE VENDOR'S ROLE IN COMBATING ALERT FATIGUETHE VENDOR'S ROLE IN COMBATING ALERT
FATIGUE
As alerts pile up, the complexity can overwhelm security professionals, allowing
real threats to be missed. This is where vendors must step up.
Supradeep Bokkasam, Security Engineer
November 14, 2024
4 Min Read
Source: Skorzewiak via Alamy Stock Photo
COMMENTARY
For most of my cybersecurity career, I worked on the vendor side, in presales
capacity, helping businesses identify and address security pain points. Now, as
an information security engineer, I am on the other side, engaging with security
vendors. A typical sales engagement includes pre-sales, proof of concept (PoC),
onboarding, and support. While PoCs are useful, the real complexity of a product
is understood only when the customer is fully onboarding.
Although customers are responsible for accurate implementation of systems,
vendors must realize they play a key role in guiding them through settings to
ensure optimal performance and reduced alert fatigue.
Achieving 100% efficiency will always be an ongoing challenge, but alert fatigue
remains a significant issue. Modern security systems involve multiple
components, each generating alerts that require teams to collaborate. And as
alerts pile up, the complexity can overwhelm security professionals, allowing
real threats to be missed. This is where vendors must step up.
THE REALITY OF ALERT FATIGUE
Alert fatigue is not new, but the problem becomes bigger as organizations adopt
more complex security solutions. These tools detect every potential anomaly,
generating a flood of alerts, many of which are low-priority or false positives,
obscuring critical signals.
When faced with hundreds of alerts daily, analysts can become numb, ignoring or
delaying important alerts, which leads to security breaches. Vendors currently
address only part of the challenge by delivering systems that detect every
possible attack are only doing half their job. However, these products alone
fall short in helping companies effectively manage the alert flood, often times
requiring a managed security service provider (MSSP) to bridge the gap. But they
must do a better job helping companies manage the resulting flood of
information.
WHY VENDORS MUST TAKE OWNERSHIP
It may be tempting for vendors to shift alert management to customers, but
vendors create the underlying logic that generates these alerts, and therefore,
they must ensure their tools enable users to respond effectively rather than
overwhelming them.
Here's how vendors need to take lead:
1. Smart filtering and prioritization: Vendors should design tools that
prioritize high-risk alerts while suppressing noise using machine learning
and contextual analytics. This reduces irrelevant notifications.
2. Automation to reduce manual work: The volume of alerts makes manual
intervention impractical. Vendors should offer built-in automation for
routine alerts, allowing security engineers to focus on critical ones, such
as sinkholing, rate-limiting, blocking malicious IPs, or isolating
suspicious files.
3. Actionable alerts with context: Vendors need to provide meaningful data with
each alert, contextualizing it for the customer's environment and offering
clear next steps, enabling quicker, more effective responses.
4. Continuous engagement and customization: Vendors must stay engaged with
customers beyond the initial setup, helping tailor systems to meet specific
needs. Regular optimization reduces unnecessary alerts and ensures critical
threats are identified.
5. Feedback-based adaptive learning: Vendors should provide solutions that
evolve with feedback loops, learning from customer input. False positives or
low-priority alert floods should lead to system adjustments, improving
accuracy over time.
THE COST OF IGNORING ALERT FATIGUE
If vendors fail to address alert fatigue, security teams may miss critical
threats, leading to breaches. Overwhelmed staff may burn out, increasing
turnover. For vendors, poor alert management can erode customer trust, leading
to dissatisfaction and potential churn.
NEEDED: A PARTNERSHIP FOR SUCCESS
Alert fatigue is a shared problem, but vendors play the key role in solving it.
By offering smarter, more responsive systems, ongoing optimization, and
automation with context, vendors help customers focus on what matters the most.
This isn't just about efficiency — it's about creating a partnership between
vendors and customers. Together, they must be able to cut through the noise and
be able to provide clarity in the fight against modern cyber threats. Vendors
must ensure their solutions don't just alert but empower users to make the best
decisions.
Don't miss the upcoming free Dark Reading Virtual Event, "Know Your Enemy:
Understanding Cybercriminals and Nation-State Threat Actors," Nov. 14 at 11 a.m.
ET. Don't miss sessions on understanding MITRE ATT&CK, using proactive security
as a weapon, and a masterclass in incident response; and a host of top speakers
like Larry Larsen from the Navy Credit Federal Union, former Kaspersky Lab
analyst Costin Raiu, Ben Read of Mandiant Intelligence, Rob Lee from SANS, and
Elvia Finalle from Omdia. Register now!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Supradeep Bokkasam
Security Engineer
Supradeep Bokkasam is a Brisbane-based information security engineer with nearly
20 years of IT experience. He has worked extensively in the content delivery
network (CDN) space, focusing on network and application security, identity and
access management (IAM), and zero-trust network access (ZTNA). He has worked
with organizations across various sectors to identify and safeguard critical
assets against cyber threats.
See more from Supradeep Bokkasam
Keep up with the latest cybersecurity threats, newly discovered vulnerabilities,
data breach information, and emerging trends. Delivered daily or weekly right to
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