Cybersecurity Alert Fatigue

What is Alert Fatigue in Cybersecurity?

In cybersecurity, alert fatigue is the state of desensitization experienced by security analysts due to an excessive volume of security alerts. Constant notifications often signaling false alarms from systems like IDS can impair an analyst’s ability to differentiate between critical and non-critical threats. IDS is not the only culprit, however. Alert fatigue can result from a combination of tools and systems detecting a range of threats and suspicious activities. 

With numerous cybersecurity tools generating alerts for various security events — both malicious and benign — it is easy to overlook or entirely miss serious and imminent threats or have drastically slower response times. We believe that all alerts are important, serving the function of flagging information that could be relevant for more than just threat detection, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the sheer number of alerts produced by many network security tools, such as IDS, can be overwhelming.

While signature-based detection, such as that found in intrusion detection systems (IDS), is often one of the main causes of alert fatigue, it is not the only factor that causes it. Complex IT environments, inefficient processes, redundancy-based strategies, and false positives all contribute to the prevalence of alert fatigue in cybersecurity.

Mitigating alert fatigue is essential for maintaining an effective cybersecurity posture. Thankfully, there are ways to minimize alert fatigue without sacrificing the detection provided by signature-based systems like IDS, but we will go more into detail on that later.

What is an Example of Alert Fatigue?

For an example of cybersecurity alert fatigue, let’s look at a hypothetical:

Let’s say a healthcare organization’s Security Operations Center (SOC) is tasked with monitoring a large network encompassing patient data, administrative systems, and connected medical devices. Their IDS is configured to detect a broad spectrum of activity on the network, generating thousands of alerts daily.

In this scenario, the IDS identifies a series of failed login attempts originating from an unfamiliar IP address. An alert is triggered, notifying the SOC analyst. Shortly after, another alert appears, indicating unusual data transfer patterns from a specific medical device. These alerts are followed by a continuous stream of notifications regarding potential malware activity on various workstations.

The constant influx of alerts, some of which might be false positives (non-threatening events flagged as threats), can desensitize the analyst. They might start prioritizing responding to the most recent alert or overlooking alerts with seemingly generic descriptions.  In this scenario, the initial failed login attempt, potentially indicating a hacking attempt, could be overshadowed by the subsequent alerts. This might lead to a delayed investigation, allowing the attacker time to exploit vulnerabilities. The analyst must spend significant time investigating each alert only to find that one was serious, leading to inefficiency and potential burnout. This hinders their ability to focus on in-depth analysis and proactive threat hunting.

An overwhelming volume of alerts, paired with false positives, can contribute to alert fatigue. This example emphasizes the importance of implementing strategies to prioritize critical alerts and streamline security tools to minimize desensitization and ensure timely response to genuine cyber threats.

So how can you diagnose whether or not the analysts in your organization are experiencing alert fatigue?

What are the Symptoms of Alert Fatigue?

Alert fatigue in cybersecurity can manifest in both individual analysts and in organizational processes. Recognizing these alert fatigue symptoms is the first step in diagnosing an alert fatigue problem and working towards solving it:

Symptoms in Individual Analysts:

• Decreased Response Time: Analysts experiencing fatigue may exhibit a noticeable delay in investigating and responding to alerts. Critical incidents might go unnoticed or be addressed with a lower priority.
• Increased Dismissal of Alerts: Analysts might begin dismissing alerts, particularly those with recurring patterns or seemingly low-risk profiles, without thorough investigation. This can lead to missed genuine threats disguised as familiar "noise."
• Reduced Investigation Depth: Fatigue can lead to a cursory analysis of alerts, neglecting a deeper investigation into potential root causes or context surrounding the event. This compromises the effectiveness of threat detection and mitigation efforts.
• Burnout and Emotional Apathy: The constant pressure of managing a high volume of alerts can lead to stress, burnout, and a general sense of apathy towards incoming notifications. This further hinders effective response.

Symptoms in Organizational Processes:

• Inefficient Alert Triage: Organizations experiencing alert fatigue might struggle with prioritizing critical alerts. The abundance of notifications can overwhelm existing triage procedures, hindering timely response.
• High False Positive Rate: Security tools generating a high number of false positives, such as IDS, contribute significantly to fatigue. Analysts waste valuable time investigating non-threatening events, diverting resources from real security incidents.
• Declining Morale and Productivity: The overwhelming nature of alert fatigue can negatively impact team morale and productivity. Analysts may become discouraged and less engaged in their duties

Organizations can identify alert fatigue through a combination of monitoring metrics and direct communication with security analysts. Analyzing trends in response times, alert dismissal rates, and the number of escalated incidents can reveal potential issues. Additionally, conducting surveys and holding open discussions with the security team can provide valuable insights into their workload and experience with alert volume.

So, you’ve determined that your organization is dealing with an alert fatigue problem. What now?

How do you Overcome Alert Fatigue?

There isn’t any fix-all solution to overcome cybersecurity alert fatigue; however, there are several strategies that can help minimize its impact within your organization:

• Reduce Alert Volume: Fine-tune your security tools to minimize false positives. Correlating alerts from different systems to identify common triggers and refine configurations could reduce redundant notifications. Consider using threat intelligence feeds to prioritize alerts based on known attack vectors and indicators of compromise (IOCs) to focus attention on the most high-risk scenarios.
• Improve Alert Prioritization: Implement a risk-scoring system that assigns severity levels to alerts based on factors like potential impact, asset involved, and attacker methodology. This allows for faster triage and prioritization. You could also possibly automate alert routing based on severity and context, directing lower-risk alerts for later review while highlighting critical ones. Some systems, like the Stamus Security Platform, can do this automatically.
• Enhance Analyst Efficiency: Develop and implement standardized incident response playbooks that outline clear procedures for handling different types of security incidents. This streamlines investigations and reduces wasted effort.
• Promote Analyst Well-being: Implement scheduling practices that prevent burnout, including regular breaks and rotations to distribute workload and maintain focus. Encourage open communication within the team. Analysts should feel comfortable raising concerns about workload or requesting additional resources.

What is the Biggest Weakness in Cybersecurity?

Alert fatigue can quickly become an organization’s biggest weakness in cybersecurity. This is especially true for many organizations using intrusion detection systems (IDS). While IDS plays a vital role in flagging suspicious activity, they can inadvertently contribute to a state of desensitization and hinder effective threat detection.

The primary challenge is the sheer volume of alerts generated by IDSs. These systems are often configured to detect a broad spectrum of activities, leading to a constant stream of notifications. This includes not only genuine threats but also false positives – non-threatening events mistakenly flagged as suspicious.

The overwhelming number of alerts, coupled with the presence of false positives, creates several issues:

• Desensitization: Analysts bombarded with continuous alerts may become accustomed to the noise, potentially overlooking critical threats disguised as familiar "noise."
• Prioritization Challenges: Triage processes become overloaded, making it difficult to distinguish critical incidents from less urgent ones. This can lead to delayed responses to genuine threats.
• Inefficiency and Burnout: Analysts waste valuable time investigating false positives, hindering their ability to focus on deeper analysis and proactive threat hunting. This can lead to frustration, burnout, and decreased productivity.

This reliance on IDSs creates a situation where the very tool designed to enhance security can inadvertently weaken it. Therefore, a crucial aspect of strengthening cybersecurity lies in mitigating alert fatigue within organizations. One way to do this is by replacing your IDS with a more advanced network detection and response (NDR) system that can automatically highlight the most serious and imminent threats.

How to Fix Alert Fatigue?

While the above strategies are great ways to minimize the potential impact of alert fatigue within your organization, one of the most effective methods to fix alert fatigue caused by IDS is to transition to a more modern system that solves the challenges of IDS.

The Stamus Security Platform (SSP) is a broad-spectrum, open network-based threat detection and response system (NDR). SSP can be deployed on-premise or in cloud environments and uses deep packet inspection to directly extract and build security insights from network traffic. Built on top of Suricata – the powerful open-source network security engine – SSP combines signature-based IDS, network security monitoring (NSM) capabilities, and other advanced threat detection methods.

In order to combat alert fatigue and provide accelerated incident response, SSP adds automated event triage with extensive data enrichment and a unique capability called Declarations of Compromise™.

A key element of SSP’s ability to combat alert fatigue is the Declaration of Compromise™ (DoC). A DoC event is the highest confidence assertion SSP provides, highlighting a specific threat and the asset it is impacting. SSP then builds a detailed timeline of activity and collects the supporting evidence and context associated with the attack on the impacted asset. These events are automatically escalated, and the analyst is notified via webhook in a variety of applications - SOAR, SIEM, Discord, web chat, etc.

This dramatically reduces the number of security events that need to be investigated, essentially eradicating alert fatigue. Organizations that deploy SSP are able to redeploy their staff to focus on more proactive security measures and dramatically improve incident response times.