Why overusing alerts harms team trust

“Visibility without context is just data overload.” (Explanation with Case Study from GULF) Because knowing everything means nothing if you don’t know what to do with it. And in OT environments, information without relevance isn’t insight, it's interruption. Most OT tools show you everything except what actually matters to the plant manager, the engineer, or the vendor trying to finish the job without breaking the system. 📖 STORY: THE REFINERY MISALIGNMENT IN THE GULF We were working with a large industrial operation in the Gulf, a critical part of the region’s energy supply chain. The company ran multiple sites, from refining units to chemical plants, spread across remote areas with legacy systems and rotating field teams. Their IT leadership had just rolled out a sophisticated OT visibility and threat detection platform. They called it “total visibility.” The OT teams called it something else. Almost overnight, the SOC was flooded with thousands of alerts  triggered by routine maintenance, remote vendor logins, and unmanaged legacy equipment that had been running safely for years. The alerts weren’t just overwhelming. They were unactionable. Field engineers didn’t know what to respond to. The SOC couldn’t tell which alerts truly mattered. Vendor tasks were delayed. Access requests were denied. Production timelines slipped. No breach. No attack. Just friction  from tools that lacked context. 💡 INSIGHT Culture is what determines how people interpret urgency, ownership, and risk. And cybersecurity, especially in OT, isn’t just about controls. It’s about clarity  across: 🧠 IT and OT 🧱 Engineering and security 🤝 Internal teams and external vendors When that alignment breaks, even the best tools break trust. Because it’s not how much you see. It’s how clearly you understand what to do with it. 🔄 SHIFT IN THINKING ❌ Don’t start with dashboards. ✅ Start with context. ❌ Don’t lead with policy. ✅ Lead with partnership. What secures OT environments isn’t just more data   It’s purposeful visibility that respects uptime, safety, and operational flow. ✅ TAKEAWAYS 🔸 Tune your alerts to match operational reality, not just technical severity 🔸 Make risk language understandable across departments 🔸 Give OT teams the clarity they need to act  not just react 🔸 Build trust between SOC, engineering, and vendors before crisis strikes 📩 CTA If you're leading cybersecurity in critical infrastructure or industrial operations and struggling with alert fatigue, misalignment, or tool rejection  DM me. We’ll share the Context-First Visibility Framework we use to turn noise into action and finger-pointing into functional trust. 👇 Where have you seen too much visibility become the real vulnerability? #CyberLeadership #OTSecurity #VisibilityWithContext #OperationalClarity #ITOT #SecurityCulture

Your SOC handles thousands of alerts. Most are wrong. I built a short deck on the AI alert crisis that SOC leaders keep venting about. It is blunt. It is practical. It shows why trust in AI alarms is falling while risk climbs. I've built and managed global SOCs for multi-national organizations. It's why I have the hairstyle that I have. Now, I work with clients. I see the same pattern. 𝘛𝘰𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘴, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘹𝘵, 𝘻𝘦𝘳𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺. The result is that analysts tune out and real incidents potentially slip through the cracks. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘂𝗴𝗹𝘆:  • 4,484 alerts per day on average and 83% false positives.  • $3.3B is burned each year on manual triage in the US.  • 71% report burnout and 85% have considered leaving.  • 84% of orgs investigate the same incidents twice. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝘅 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀:  • Explainability by default. Every high-risk alert ships with the why, sources, and MITRE linkages. 75% of leaders demand transparency.  • Evidence bundles, not riddles. Timeline, provenance, asset context, and intel in one view.  • Shadow trials and A/B triage before go-live. Human–AI teaming has shown 60%+ gains in critical alert accuracy in controlled tests. If you lead a SOC or fund one, review the slides below. Share with your team. I kept it tight so you can act on this now. Would love your take. Which change would move your SOC more tomorrow, explainability or workflow A/B testing? 👉 Follow for more cybersecurity and AI insights with the occasional rant. #SOC #Cybersecurity #AI #CISO

Alert Fatigue is Killing Your DBA Team When I worked at a large healthcare company, I'd get jolted awake at 3AM by my pager. Heart racing, I'd scramble for my laptop only to discover the "emergency" was low batteries in the network room equipment rack. This wasn't isolated — we received thousands of alerts daily. Most meaningless, useless, and not actionable. Years later, I still have a physical reaction to certain phone vibrations. Actual PTSD from alert bombardment. Your DBAs probably suffer from it too. SQL environments commonly generate 500,000 events monthly. Yet after proper filtering, only 1-2 genuinely require emergency response. This is why at Red9, we completely reimagined SQL monitoring: Our system analyzes those 500,000 raw events but intelligently filters them through multiple logic layers. We deploy automated fixes for common issues and categorize real problems into 5 precise buckets with clear SLAs. The result? In a typical month, only one true P1 emergency reaches your team across millions of events. When that alert comes through, you know it's legitimate — not another useless battery warning. Stop letting meaningless alerts destroy your team's productivity and mental health.

🛠️ When every alert feels urgent, are the important ones slipping through the cracks? Alert fatigue is real, and it’s more than just an annoyance. For too many teams, it’s a constant barrage of pings, emails, and urgent “look here now” notifications. These distractions do more than just waste time—they drain energy, slow productivity, and sometimes even result in missing the crucial alert. I recently spoke to an enterprise IT leader who shared their “before” scenario: 🔹 Critical and non-critical alerts mixed together 🔹 The team felt overwhelmed and constantly reactive 🔹 They missed key incidents buried in the noise Sound familiar? This team took a step back and started prioritizing alerts, focusing on clarity and impact. They shifted to a model that allowed their team to filter out noise and only act on the highest priority issues. The “after” scenario: 🔹 Alerts are meaningful and actionable 🔹 Critical incidents are clearly flagged and handled faster 🔹 The team’s stress levels dropped, productivity spiked, and they felt empowered again When alerts have purpose, and when the noise is filtered out, you unlock the real potential of your team. But if that focus is missing? Burnout creeps in, and both performance and morale take a hit. Only work with an alerting strategy that: 🔹 Keeps focus on what truly matters 🔹 Empowers your team to respond with purpose 🔹 Fosters growth and keeps them energized If you’re drowning in unnecessary alerts, maybe it’s time to take a step back and recalibrate. Bottom line? Your alerting system should be a tool that drives clarity, not fatigue. The right strategy can turn noise into signals, keep your team engaged, and ultimately help your business thrive. #AlertFatigue #ITLeadership #BusinessImpact #Productivity #Focus