For years, security operations have been optimized around one core function: responding to alerts. SIEMs generate alerts. SOCs triage them. MDR providers investigate and close tickets. Success is measured in mean time to respond, tickets resolved, and alerts handled per analyst. But this model is reaching its limits.

I got this question last week from one of the largest financial institutions: “When you’re looking at millions of CSPM alerts, do you actually investigate them or just treat them as hygiene issues and assign them to the cloud team?” Honestly, it’s a fair question—and one a lot of teams are probably asking themselves.

All alerts are not equal. Yet somehow, every alert becomes the SOC’s problem. Every day, SIEM and CNAPP tools flood the SOC with alerts — but take a closer look, and they generally fall into four categories: