Modern organizations often fall into a trap where significant investments in SIEM platforms and security certifications fail to guarantee actual protection. Tools without well-established processes only create an illusion of security unless they are accompanied by deep operational changes.
The pitfall of formal compliance and tooling
A common mistake is treating threat detection as a one-off software purchase. Deploying a SIEM without alert mapping leads to alert fatigue, causing the SOC team to miss targeted attacks. According to the NIST CSF 2.0 framework, cyber risk management is a core part of corporate governance, meaning effectiveness is measured by how well tools are integrated into daily operations.
A similar situation applies to ISO 27001 certification or the NIS2 directive. Obtaining certificates without actual control remains a paper-only exercise. According to the ENISA Threat Landscape 2025, critical entities subject to NIS2 accounted for 53.7% of all attacked organizations between July 2024 and June 2025. This proves that formal status does not protect against incidents.
What is at stake for the industry
For the industry and businesses, relying on formal compliance and unconfigured tools leads to wasted security budgets and a false sense of safety. Organizations remain highly vulnerable to sophisticated attacks, which can result in severe data breaches, financial losses, and regulatory penalties despite holding valid security certificates.
Steps for businesses
For effective monitoring, SIEM operations must be aligned with the MITRE ATT&CK framework, which structures adversary behavior. This provides context for events and helps avoid informational noise.
Real operational resilience requires implementing the following steps:
- Response playbooks: step-by-step instructions for analysts to contain threats for each alert.
- Proactive Threat Hunting: regular searches for indicators of compromise within the infrastructure.
- Cyber drills: practical validation of procedures and gap identification through attack simulations.
Integrating security into system architecture
An effective approach involves integrating compliance requirements directly into the IT system architecture. A prime example is the experience of the Intecracy Group consortium, which utilizes the UnityBase low-code platform for mission-critical systems. Its specialized editions feature built-in security mechanisms: role-based access control (RBAC), row-level security (RLS), and user activity auditing. This architectural approach makes compliance a natural outcome of system operations.
Prepared by a Software Ukraine member. Original publication.