Why Human-Centered Security Tools Are the Future of SecOps
Human-computer interaction--it's not just for customers!
SIEM platforms, despite their advanced capabilities, often overwhelm users with excessive data and complex systems. As cyber threats grow, security teams find themselves sorting through endless notifications and struggling to focus on real threats. What are the best practices for managing alert overload? The first step is to adopt solutions that prioritize people, which simplifies security and makes it more intuitive and effective.
The Problem with SIEM Platforms
Most cybersecurity SIEM platforms focus heavily on data and automation, producing a flood of alerts. While these tools detect threats, they often leave security teams buried in information, making it difficult to identify what deserves immediate attention. This results in alert fatigue, with critical alerts either overlooked or delayed due to the sheer volume of notifications. Security tools that burden rather than empower their users ultimately fail to address this growing challenge.
What Is Human-Centered Security?
Human-centered security focuses on building tools that seamlessly fit into how people actually work. Rather than adding complexity, these tools simplify the security process by delivering clear, actionable insights for investigations and mitigation. Crowdalert exemplifies this approach. By integrating with platforms like Slack, it sends only the most relevant alerts directly to security teams, allowing them to respond without switching between different tools.
This approach reduces the cognitive load on SOC analysts and investigators, freeing them to focus on genuine threats rather than sifting through unnecessary data. The result is faster, more informed decision-making and a more efficient security operation.
Simplifying Security for Everyone
Human-centered security tools prioritize usability. They offer simple, concise communication rather than complex dashboards cluttered with data. Crowdalert, for instance, sends actionable and prioritized messages through Slack. When a suspicious event occurs—like a potential misconfiguration in GitHub or an unusual action in AWS—Crowdalert delivers a clear notification with context about which account took the action and what else they’ve been doing in your systems. This enables SecOps teams to assess the situation quickly, without getting bogged down by irrelevant or duplicate information.
These tools transform security from a cumbersome obligation into a more manageable aspect of daily operations for everyone. For example, if a developer is in the middle of a code review and receives a prompt about a suspicious login attempt, they can quickly indicate “that was me” and resolve the issue directly within Slack without it being escalated further. This not only enhances efficiency but also fosters a culture of collaboration, where security becomes a shared responsibility across teams. By streamlining processes and reducing friction, these tools minimize the stress and anxiety associated with traditional security measures.
Reducing False Positives with Human Feedback
SIEM platforms often trigger alerts for minor or routine actions, contributing to security team burnout. Human-centered tools, like Crowdalert, take a different approach. They incorporate human feedback to filter out false positives. For instance, when an employee performs a routine action, such as launching a new AWS instance, Crowdalert prompts them to confirm the activity. If the action is legitimate, it’s logged, but the security team is spared an unnecessary alert, keeping their focus on actual threats.
This human-in-the-loop approach reduces false positives and allows Crowdalert’s machine learning capabilities to improve over time, learning from real-world input. By using the insights and context provided by users, human-centered security tools enhance alert accuracy while fostering a proactive security culture where employees feel engaged and informed in safeguarding their environments.
Promoting Cross-Functional Communication and Trust
Human-centered security tools also improve interactions between departments. Security today requires coordination between developers, IT teams, and security professionals. Crowdalert’s integration with Slack, Splunk, and other tools makes it easy for teams to share and act on security alerts in real-time, fostering cross-functional teamwork. This streamlined communication speeds up incident resolution and ensures that everyone involved is informed and engaged.
Empowering People To Improve Security
Cybersecurity threats keep evolving, so the tools we use must evolve too. Human-centered security represents the future because it focuses on empowering people, not just machines. By integrating into existing workflows, reducing alert fatigue, and improving efficiency, these tools help security teams work smarter, not harder.
Human-driven solutions make cybersecurity outcomes more manageable and attainable, giving security professionals the space to focus on solving real problems. The result is a more efficient, less stressful approach to securing modern organizations—one where people, not machines, are at the center of it all.
- By
- Crowdalert Staff