Analyst Fatigue: The Best Never Rest
They may not be saying so, but your senior analysts are exhausted.
Each day, more and more devices connect to their enterprise networks, creating an ever-growing avenue for OS exploits and phishing attacks. Meanwhile, the number of threats—some of which are powerful enough to hobble entire cities—is rising even faster.
While most companies have a capable cadre of junior analysts, most of today’s EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) systems leave them hamstrung. The startlingly complex nature of typical EDR software necessitates years of experience to successfully operate—meaning that no matter how willing the more “green” analysts are to help, they just don’t yet have the necessary skillset to effectively triage threats.
What’s worse, while these “solutions” require your top performers, they don’t always offer top performance in return. While your most experienced analysts should be addressing major threats, a lot of times they’re stuck wading through a panoply of false positives—issues that either aren’t threats, or aren’t worth investigating. And while they’re tied up with that, they must also confront the instances of false negatives: threats that slip through the cracks, potentially avoiding detection while those best suited to address them are busy attempting to work through the noise. This problem has gotten so bad that some IT departments are deploying MDR systems on top of their EDR packages—increasing the complexity of your company’s endpoint protection and further increasing employee stress levels.
Hoping to both measure the true impact of “analyst fatigue” on SOCs and to identify possible solutions, a commissioned study was conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of McAfee in March 2019 to see what effects current EDRs were having on businesses, and try to recognize the potential for solutions. Forrester surveyed security technology decision-makers, from the managers facing threats head-on to those in the C-suite viewing security solutions at the macro level in relation to his or her firm’s financial needs and level of risk tolerance. Respondents were from the US, UK, Germany or France, and worked in a variety of industries at companies ranging in size from 1,000 to over 50,000 employees.
When asked about their endpoint security goals, respondents’ top three answers—to improve security detection capabilities (87%), increase efficiency in the SOC (76%) and close the skills gap in the SecOps team (72%)—all pointed to limitations in many current EDRs. Further inquiry revealed that while 43% of security decision makers consider automated detection a critical requirement, only 30% feel their current solution(s) completely meet their needs in this area.
While the issues uncovered were myriad, the results also suggested that a single solution could ameliorate a variety of these problems. The introduction of EDR programs incorporating Guided Investigation could increase efficiency by allowing junior analysts to assist in threat identification, thereby freeing up more seasoned analysts to address detected threats and focus on only the most complex issues, leading to an increase in detection capabilities. Meanwhile, the hands-on experience that junior analysts would get addressing real-life EDR threats would increase both their personal efficiency and their skill level, helping to eliminate the skills gaps present in some departments.
To learn more about the problems and possibilities in the current EDR landscape, you can read the full “Empower Security Analysts Through Guided EDR Investigation” study by clicking here.
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