Signal worth collecting
Logging everything is a budget decision disguised as a security decision. We work out which sources would actually change an outcome.
Security operations
Fewer alerts. Better decisions.
We design the monitoring, the triage process and the playbooks that turn a stream of events into a small number of things someone is actually going to do about tonight.
Detection designTriage processResponse playbooks
Events
96
Alerts
54
Triaged
26
Incidents
09
Illustrative interface
AzbersInnovations
AzbersInnovations
What we look at first
Before adding a single new detection, we ask what happens to the ones you already have.
An operation that ignores forty percent of its alerts does not have a coverage problem. Adding more sources to that environment makes the situation worse, not better, and it is a surprisingly common place to find a team.
Triage somebody can follow
A process that depends on one experienced analyst being awake is not a process. It needs to survive handover, holiday and turnover.
Playbooks that assume pressure
Response steps are written for a tired person at two in the morning, because that is when they get used.
The reporting layer
An operation has to be able to explain itself upward.
Leadership rarely wants alert counts. They want to know whether the thing that worried them last quarter is now handled, and whether the team is coping.
We set up the reporting rhythm that answers that honestly, including the parts that are uncomfortable. An operation that only reports good news loses its budget the first time something goes wrong in public.
COVERAGE
Which parts of the estate are genuinely watched, and which are assumed.
LOAD
Whether the volume reaching analysts is sustainable for the team you have.
QUALITY
How often triage reaches the right answer, and where it commonly does not.
CLOSURE
What happened after the incident, and whether the gap was really shut.
What you are left holding
Four things that outlast the engagement.
Everything here is written to survive handover, holiday and turnover, because that is when a monitoring operation is really tested.
A monitoring design that fits your estate
Which sources are worth collecting, which are noise, and what you would genuinely catch with each one.
A triage process somebody new can follow
Written for an analyst on their second week at two in the morning, not for the person who already knows the answer.
Playbooks for what actually happens
Short and specific, covering the handful of scenarios that make up most of your real volume rather than every scenario imaginable.
A reporting rhythm for leadership
What goes up, how often and in what language, including the parts that are uncomfortable to send.
Questions we get asked
Before you get in touch
The questions that come up most often, answered the way we would answer them on a call.
We already have a SIEM. Is this still relevant?
Usually more so. Most of the operations we work with are not short of tooling or data, they are short of a triage process that survives handover and a set of playbooks somebody can follow under pressure.
Will you tell us to buy something?
Rarely. The first pass is almost always about what happens to the alerts you already generate, because adding sources to an operation that is ignoring forty percent of its alerts makes the position worse rather than better.
Do you run the SOC for us?
We design it, document it and hand it over so your team can run it. The aim is to leave you more capable, not to leave you dependent on us.
How long before we see a difference?
The triage and playbook work tends to show up first, because it changes what happens to alerts you are already receiving. Detection design takes longer, since it has to be tuned against your own environment.
Operation feeling louder than it is effective?
That is usually fixable without buying anything new, and the first conversation is normally enough to tell which way it will go.