4 Outdated Habits Destroying Your SOC's MTTR in 2026
Jan 15, 2026
Threat Detection / Malware Analysis
It's 2026, yet many SOCs are still operating the way they did years ago, using tools and processes designed for a very different threat landscape. Given the growth in volumes and complexity of cyber threats, outdated practices no longer fully support analysts' needs, staggering investigations and incident response. Below are four limiting habits that may be preventing your SOC from evolving at the pace of adversaries, and insights into what forward-looking teams are doing instead to achieve enterprise-grade incident response this year. 1. Manual Review of Suspicious Samples Despite advances in security tools, many analysts still rely heavily on manual validation and analysis. This approach creates friction on every step, from processing samples to switching between tools and manually correlating the findings. Manually dependent workflows are often the root cause of alert fatigue and delayed prioritization, subsequently slowing down response. These challenges are especially re...
