Why legacy SIEM tools have failed security teams

Today's adversaries can infiltrate and navigate organisations with alarming speed. The average eCrime breakout time — the time it takes an adversary to move laterally from an initially compromised host to another host in the victim environment — dropped to 62 minutes in 2023, with the fastest observed breakout time just over two minutes. This rapid escalation underscores the urgent need for lean, fast and effective security operations.

But speed and efficiency are difficult to achieve for organisations shifting to cloud-based systems and adopting new technologies. SOCs must analyse a vast amount of data to identify and stop threats, and what was once a modest stream of data they had to navigate has now become an ocean. Their ability to respond in this new context has been hamstrung by the inefficiencies of outdated security information and event management (SIEM) systems. 

The Challenges of the Modern SOC

Legacy SIEM tools — initially designed for a time when adversaries were slower, and log volumes were a fraction of what they are today — are now too slow, complex and costly to deliver the security outcome that matters most: stopping the breach.  

These tools are complex to set up and manage, and their disconnected data flows make the SOC team's responsibilities cumbersome and time-consuming. Because many rely on on-premises infrastructure or hybrid set ups, legacy SIEM tools also incur high operational costs from hardware, maintenance, and labor-intensive deployments. Further, scaling these systems is financially burdensome due to inherent data fragmentation and ingestion challenges.

The limitations of legacy SIEM tools have led to a pressing challenge for security teams: the data paradox. This conflict between the desire to collect extensive data and the prohibitive costs and complexities of doing so forces organisations to make security decisions based on financial constraints — a recipe for disaster. When SOCs are limited in their ability to log and retain data, it creates blind spots and slows response times, leaving the organisation vulnerable to breaches.

Legacy SIEMs also force security analysts into the role of "data wrangler," in which they spend most of their time submerged in the complexities of SIEM setup and maintenance rather than pursuing meaningful security insights.  

Overcoming the Data Paradox

Tackling modern SOC challenges requires a fundamental shift in how security data is managed and used. Enter the next-generation SIEM. 

Next-gen SIEMs combine data, security and IT with AI and workflow automation natively built into a unified cybersecurity platform where SOC teams carry out most of their investigative work. Built on a cloud-native, index-free architecture, next-gen SIEMs resolve the data paradox by optimising data ingestion, processing and storage to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

As part of a unified AI-native cybersecurity platform, next-gen SIEMs accelerate investigations and drive faster detections because analysts no longer need to pivot between consoles and manually piece together data. There's no need to forward and periodically retrieve endpoint detection and response (EDR), cloud workload or identity protection logs. And because key data is already in the platform and available for correlation, there is no latency and no backlogs, reducing the mean time to detect. 

The Rise of the AI-Native SOC

We must face reality — legacy SIEM tools have failed the modern SOC. They are hampered by sluggishness, complexity and exorbitant costs, all of which undermine the goals of security teams. These teams need technology that provide immediate time-to-value and improve both functionality and cost efficiency.

Powered by next-gen SIEMs, the AI-native SOC represents a formidable leap forward. These advanced systems transform security operations by scaling to support growing data volumes and integrating high-fidelity threat intelligence from a variety of sources, including identity, EDR and cloud infrastructure. With advanced analytics and AI, next-gen SIEMs enable SOC teams to detect and respond to threats with unprecedented speed and accuracy.