Modern SOCs are now grappling with a massive visibility problem, essentially “driving through fog” but now with their headlights dimming rapidly. The playbook for many teams is still looking back: analysts wait for an alert to fire, investigate the incident, and then try to respond.
While understandable due to the high volume of noise and alert fatigue, this reactive attitude leaves the organization exposed.
It induces a clouded vision from structural level, where teams cannot observe threat actors conducting attack preparations, they do not predict campaign sequences aimed at their own sector, and are not capable of modifying the defense until after an attack has been launched.
Operational costs of delay
Remaining in a reactive state imposes severe penalties on security teams in terms of time, budget, and risk profile.
- Investigation latency: Without broader context, analysts are forced to research every suspicious object from scratch, significantly slowing down response times.
- Resource drain: Teams often waste cycles chasing false positives or threats that are irrelevant to their geography or vertical because they lack the intelligence to filter them out.
- Increased breach risk: Attackers frequently reuse infrastructure and target specific industries; failing to spot these patterns early hands the advantage to the adversary.
According to security analysts, the only way out is the transition from the current reactive SOC model to an active SOC model powered by Threat Intelligence (TI). Tools like the ANY.RUN Threat Intelligence Lookup serve as a "tactical magnifying glass," converting raw data into operational assets .The use of TI helps the SOC understand the threats currently present in their environment and which alerts must be escalated immediately.
Rise of hybrid threats
One of the major reasons for this imperative change is the increased pace of change in attack infrastructure, specifically hybrid threats. The use of multiple attacks together has now been brought to the fore by recent investigations by the researchers, including Tycoon 2FA and Salty attack kits combining together as one kill chain attack. In these scenarios, one kit may handle the initial lure and reverse proxy, while another manages session hijacking. These combinations effectively break existing detection rules and confuse traditional defense strategies.
To address this challenge, IT professionals need behavioral patterns and attack logic visibility in real time, as opposed to only focusing on signatures. Finally, proactive protection based on industry and geo context enables SOC managers to understand the threats that matter to them more effectively while predicting attacks rather than reacting to them.