SECURITY NEWS
Splunk finds industry struggling with workloads, alert fatigue, shortage of talent day burdens drain valuable time and impact an analyst’ s ability to respond quickly and decisively. The report revealed:
• 57 % report losing valuable investigation time to data management gaps
• 59 % have too many alerts
• 55 % have to address too many false positives
Splunk, the cybersecurity and observability provider, released its State of Security 2025 global research report, highlighting the mounting challenges faced by Security Operations Centres, SOCs. The report uncovers the pain points that mire down organisations and open their doors to threats – 46 % of respondents said they spend more time maintaining tools than defending the organisation, while only 11 % trust AI completely for mission-critical tasks.
Furthermore, 66 % experienced a data breach in the past year, making it the most common security incident. With new threats such as AI-powered attacks, organisations must be fully prepared and confident in protecting themselves and their customers. The common thread in addressing these concerns is to build a unified SOC that combines human expertise with AI advancements.
“ Organisations are increasingly leaning on AI for threat hunting and detection, and other mission-critical tasks, but we don’ t see AI taking complete oversight of the SOC – for good reason,” says Michael Fanning, CISO at Splunk.
According to Splunk’ s State of Security report, the industry is struggling with escalating workloads, alert fatigue, and a shortage of skilled talent. Integrating AI and automation helps us address these risks and empowers our teams with smarter tools to ensure our organisation remains resilient.
When SOC workflows aren’ t operating at their peak, it creates major barriers to effective threat detection and response.
The report highlights areas of inefficiencies that create risk for organisations:
• 59 % say tool maintenance is the main source of inefficiency
• 78 % say their security tools are dispersed and disconnected
• 69 % say disconnected and dispersed tools creates moderate to significant challenges
Tool maintenance, data silos, and alert fatigue bog down SOC teams. These day-to-
Beyond operational hurdles, the report sheds light on the immense pressure for SOC analysts. High stress levels, chronic understaffing, and burnout are taking a toll and put talent retention and long-term team stability at risk. Findings show that:
• 52 % say their team is overworked
• 52 % say stress on the job has prompted them to think about leaving cybersecurity altogether
• 43 % face unrealistic expectations by leadership
Organisations see how AI can alleviate operational and staff shortage problems, as 59 % have moderately or significantly boosted their efficiency with AI. Over half, 56 % have prioritised the application of AI to security workflows this year, while 1 in 3, 33 % plan to fill skills gaps with AI and automation.
Compared to publicly available tools, 63 % agree that domain-specific AI significantly or extremely enhances security operations. However, AI is not running solo as organisations keep humans in the loop to deliver trustworthy AI outcomes.
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