Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

SOC metrics are quantifiable measures of how well a security operations center detects, investigates, and contains threats. The metrics that matter most are mean time to detect (MTTD), mean time to respond (MTTR), and incident closure rate, because together they show speed, effectiveness, and reliability, not just activity.

Let's be honest: Every IT team has that one thing. That ancient server that nobody wants to touch somehow still runs. That vulnerability that has been sitting in the remediation queue because there were more critical issues to handle, and then there's the active service account that was created for a temporary project three years ago. Or perhaps there's a security exception that was only supposed to last for 30 days and quietly became permanent. Nothing has exploded yet, so it is easy to leave it alone.

Login pages are one of the most attacked surfaces of any enterprise tool. They're often internet-facing, they're the front door to sensitive operational data, and unlike most vulnerabilities, they don't need to be discovered—they can simply be targeted with large volumes of automated attempts. For monitoring platforms like Applications Manager, which frequently sit with visibility into critical infrastructure, that front door matters even more.

Top tips is a weekly column where we highlight what's happening in the tech world and list practical ways to navigate these developments. This week, we're looking at an everyday cybersecurity concern that often goes unnoticed: the amount of access apps have to our data and devices. We install apps to make life easier. A navigation app needs our location, a messaging app needs access to contacts, and a video-conferencing app may need the microphone and camera.

Enterprise IT environments now span cloud platforms, SaaS applications, endpoints, third-party services, and AI tools, creating more opportunities for disruption, security incidents, and operational failure. IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 puts the global average cost of a data breach at $4.99 million, while Verizon’s 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report found that 31% of breaches started with vulnerability exploitation and 48% involved a third party.

Most organizations that run a vulnerability scanner have already made a significant investment. They chose Qualys, Tenable, Rapid7, or CrowdStrike based on their detection needs, their compliance requirements, and the way their security team works. That scanner is embedded in their workflows, audit processes, and reporting chain. Then they look at their vulnerability remediation times and realize the problem is not on the scanning side.

A security event tells you what happened. But understanding why —and what was happening across the environment at the same time—can make all the difference. Modern security teams have access to vast amounts of security data through SIEM platforms. Logs, events, user activity, threat indicators, and alerts provide critical evidence for detecting and investigating potential incidents.

Traditional digital authentication methods have allowed users to enter and IT infrastructure if they hold the right key. Username and password alone provided limited context around the authenticity of the access attempt. But today, the person with the credentials may not claim who they are.