The Hidden Costs of Poor SIEM Service: 3 Issues to Eliminate Now

Security teams continue to be overwhelmed by thousands of alerts weekly, most lacking context or actionable intelligence. Today's sophisticated Managed SIEM solutions promise to separate signal from noise and deliver only what matters. But are they actually delivering on that promise?

According to Shueib Sayyed, Vice President of Security Operations at Digital Hands, many organizations are still struggling with low-quality alerts that waste time and create dangerous alert fatigue. We sat down with Shueib to discuss the three types of security notifications you should never tolerate from your Managed SIEM provider, and how proper context, investigation, and communication can transform your security operations.

1. Contextless alerts that create noise instead of signal

One of the most common complaints about SIEM systems is the sheer volume of alerts they generate. But volume isn't the only problem—it's the lack of meaningful context that turns potentially valuable security information into useless noise.

"If you are reporting failed logins without context—where it's happening from, who it's targeting, is there a pattern?—then these events mean nothing," explains Sayyed. "If you emphasize 'logins from China at 3 AM,' that's a different take for the customer."

This distinction is crucial. A failed login attempt, on its own, is rarely actionable. Most environments see dozens or hundreds of these daily. Without proper context—geographic origin, target account type, frequency patterns, or correlation with other suspicious activities—these alerts quickly become white noise that security teams learn to ignore.

The danger is clear: when security teams become desensitized to alerts, they're more likely to miss genuine threats. A quality Managed SIEM provider should enrich alerts with information like:

• Origin information (geographic location, IP reputation)
• Target context (entity—user, server, workstation, IP, etc.)
• Behavioral patterns (time of day, frequency, deviation from baseline)
• Correlation with other suspicious activity
• Recommended next steps based on the severity and context

When properly contextualized, even a simple failed login attempt can become meaningful intelligence. For example, multiple failed attempts targeting privileged accounts from high-risk geographies outside business hours suggests a potential brute force attack—something that deserves immediate attention.

"Escalations you should never receive are the ones that end up ignored in your inbox," Sayyed says. "Every escalation should have an action—whether it's validation, an internal scanner to exclude, or a real threat to report."

Every alert should drive a specific action, even if that action is simply acknowledging a benign anomaly. This action-oriented approach helps security teams quickly prioritize their response efforts, track alert resolution, and systematically improve security posture over time.

Consider the difference between these two alerts:

Poor alert: "Multiple failed login attempts detected for user janedoe"

Effective alert: "High-priority: Brute force attack targeting finance department admin account (janedoe) from Russian IP address with known botnet associations. Activity first observed at 02:14 UTC and has been ongoing for approximately 45 minutes. User account has been automatically shut down and their password has been reset in accordance with customer-agreed escalation matrix. Additional suspicious activities observed include lateral movement attempts to 3 finance servers. See attached timeline of attempts and related network activity."

The first alert provides almost no actionable information, while the second drives immediate, specific actions and has already implemented preventative measures based on your predefined response protocols.

2. Escalations that come with hidden investigation costs

When you receive poorly contextualized alerts, the real cost isn't just measured in alert volume—it's in the internal resources you must assign to investigate each notification. These hidden costs defeat the very purpose of outsourcing your security monitoring in the first place.

"As long as there is a security concern, we do it without additional cost," Sayyed emphasizes. "If something is happening with a user, we need to know, detect, and stop it for the customer."

Your Managed SIEM vendor should function as a partner, not merely an alert reflector. Their entire goal should be to provide value through comprehensive analysis that eliminates the need for your team to chase down alerts that weren't legitimate positives to begin with.

When providers simply pass along unvetted alerts, they're essentially transferring the investigation burden back to your internal team—forcing you to:

• Divert skilled security professionals from strategic initiatives
• Spend hours determining if alerts are genuine threats
• Repeatedly investigate the same types of false positives
• Manually correlate potentially related alerts across systems
• Create your own response playbooks and remediation steps

A quality Managed SIEM provider conducts thorough investigations before escalation, providing detailed findings with each alert and offering specific remediation recommendations. They involve subject matter experts as needed and work to continuously reduce alert noise through tuning and analysis.

3. Alerts that don't adapt to your changing needs

Security is not static—threat landscapes evolve, business priorities shift, and security teams reorganize. Your SIEM provider should adapt accordingly through regular communication and feedback loops.

"Cadence calls are an opportunity for CISOs to join and ensure they're getting the right alerts," Sayyed explains. "If they're getting too many, we adjust. We can even create customized alerts for specific teams."

This ongoing communication ensures:

• Alert thresholds remain appropriate for your risk tolerance
• Different stakeholders receive the information they need
• Feedback is incorporated to reduce false positives
• Alert formats and channels match your workflow
• New threats and vulnerabilities are addressed proactively

Without this regular calibration, even initially well-tuned SIEM implementations can drift into irrelevance. Business units add new applications, merge, or divest. Security teams reorganize or shift priorities. Threat actors develop new techniques. All these factors require adaptation from your SIEM provider.

A one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn't work. Experienced SIEM providers understand that no two customers are the same. The best security teams constantly work with customers to understand ways to lower the noise and make alerts as high-fidelity as possible.

This customized approach extends to creating specialized rules based on geography, user role, time of day, and other factors that make alerts relevant to each specific customer. For example, a proper SIEM provider should be able to implement different response protocols for executives versus standard users, or adjust containment strategies based on business hours versus off-hours.

Getting ahead of the threat curve

Effective security operations depend on receiving timely, relevant alerts that drive immediate action. When security teams can quickly detect and respond to genuine threats, they significantly reduce both financial damage and reputational harm.

This is the essence of our "Get There First™" philosophy—identifying and containing threats before they can cause significant damage. To achieve this, security teams need high-quality, actionable intelligence that focuses on what truly matters.

By implementing properly contextualized alerts, thorough investigations, action-oriented escalations, and adaptive communication, organizations can transform their SIEM from an overwhelming flood of notifications into a strategic security asset.

When evaluating your current provider or considering a new one, look beyond basic technology capabilities to these critical service elements. Even the most advanced SIEM technology requires human expertise to interpret data correctly and drive appropriate response actions.

Ready to Get There First™? Talk to a Digital Hands cyber expert today about how our SIEM solutions can help you stay ahead of emerging threats.