Drowning in Alerts: How to Cut the Noise and Focus on Real Threats

92 percent of organizations say they’re overwhelmed by an endless sea of alerts. 

It’s not just annoying. It’s dangerous.

In a recent Dark Reading webinar hosted by contributing editor Terry Sweeney and featuring Critical Start Field CISO Tim Bandos, security leaders got a behind-the-scenes look at how top teams fight back against alert fatigue and focus on what matters most: stopping real threats. 

Here are the most important takeaways for cybersecurity professionals who are tired of drowning in alerts and ready to regain control.

“Your team’s buried under a flood of alerts. Most are useless… and a handful could spell disaster.”

Security teams everywhere are under pressure. Duplicate alerts, vague signals, and constant interruptions make it harder than ever to identify real threats before it’s too late. 

Tim Bandos explained the root problem: “Alert fatigue occurs when security teams become desensitized almost, right, to the overwhelming amount of information… and it oftentimes causes them to miss or overlook critical alerts.” 

He recalled one incident where an analyst marked a phishing alert as a false positive. “That was ultimately a state sponsored espionage campaign from an APT threat actor… Luckily we had backup… but it was because he felt fatigued.”

Why SOC Teams Burn Out 

Security operations teams don’t just fail because of lack of effort. The problem is systemic.

According to Bandos, alert fatigue is caused by: 

• “False positives… your tools are crying wolf 24/7” 

• “Lack of context… SOC alerts that show up without any sort of background information” 

• “Tool sprawl… 50 to 75 plus security tools deployed and almost none of them talk with one another” 

When teams are buried in noise without clear prioritization or integration, they start to miss real threats. And attackers only need one gap. 

A Better Way to Triage 

At Critical Start, the solution is to reduce noise without losing fidelity. 

Bandos shared how Critical Start uses a Trusted Behavior Registry to reduce false positives at scale. “90 percent of alerts that typically come in across all of our customers… are the same,” he said. “We understand what’s good, known good. Anything that falls outside of either is either known bad or unknown. Those are the elements that we’re going to look at.” 

This allows Critical Start’s MDR team to filter out the noise before it reaches analysts. The result is faster response, lower burnout, and better threat outcomes. 

The goal is not to look at every alert. It’s to focus only on the real threats. 

Bandos outlined a triage framework that includes: 

• Contextual enrichment: “Is this a high-risk server? Is this a critical asset?” 

• Root cause investigation: “Where’s suspect zero?” 

• Blast radius containment: “What other assets were affected?” 

• Response strategy: “Do you isolate the device? Do you take the systems down?”

He shared a holiday war story. “Christmas morning, 2022… an alert in the console. We saw credential dumping on a domain controller… turned out it came from an RDP server with no multi-factor authentication.” Their ability to trace the attack back to its origin stopped the breach in its tracks. 

AI Won’t Replace the SOC, But It Can Make It Smarter 

“AI can analyze massive amounts… of data in real time,” said Bandos. “We’re more human-led, AI-assisted.” 

AI is not replacing the SOC. But it is helping analysts work smarter. At Critical Start, AI is already helping enrich alerts, accelerate triage, and identify anomalies across customer environments. 

“AI is here to stay and it’s only going to be more pervasive. But I think it’s important that we embrace it versus kind of turning away from it.” 

Practical Advice to Reduce Alert Fatigue 

Bandos wrapped the webinar with a list of practical ways to reduce alert fatigue in your security program: 

• “Optimize your security tech stack” 

• “Ensure your tools are integrated properly” 

• “Reduce your threat surface” 

• “Tackle quick win security basics” 

• “Tune and prioritize threat alerts” 

• “Sleep more soundly with an MDR” 

And remember, attackers don’t sleep. “If something happens in the middle of the night, you want [your MDR provider] to respond.” 

Watch the Webinar On-Demand 

If your team is drowning in alerts or struggling to identify which threats matter most, the full discussion between Terry Sweeney and Tim Bandos offers real-world guidance. 

Watch the full webinar on-demand and learn how to: 

• Reduce false positives 

• Prioritize the highest-fidelity alerts 

• Avoid burnout 

• Strengthen your detection and response program 

Watch now and take the first step toward cutting the noise and focusing on what’s real.