The right metric isn’t how many tickets get closed. It’s how much risk is reduced.
If your outsourced SOC dashboard looks busier every quarter, you may be paying for security theater, not protection.
You’re reviewing your third-party SOC monitoring dashboard and the numbers look impressive. Thousands of incidents processed. High closure rates. Your offshore provider’s quarterly business review shows charts trending upward–more alerts detected, more tickets resolved, more “proactive monitoring.”
But here’s the uncomfortable question: Is all that SOC activity making you more secure?
The Problem with Outsourced SOC Activity
Outsourced SOC activity that focuses on volume over outcomes creates the appearance of enhanced security without actually reducing risk. This happens when third-party SOC providers prioritize generating impressive activity metrics rather than meaningful threat detection and response outcomes.
We recently worked with a global enterprise client who discovered the hard way that SOC activity and security outcomes aren’t the same thing. For years, we’d collaborated to optimize their environment, achieving approximately 40% automation and maintaining a manageable incident flow that let analysts focus on genuine threats.
Then a new L1/L2 offshore SOC vendor took over. Almost immediately, alert configurations were modified to generate thousands of new incidents. The SOC dashboard suddenly looked busy–impressive ticket volumes, high activity metrics, constant “detection” reports.
The reality? None of those additional alerts reduced risk. Every time we worked to eliminate noise and focus on meaningful signals, new configurations appeared to spike the numbers again. The vendor was incentivized to show activity, not outcomes.
This is security theater–the appearance of protection without the substance.
Why Outsourced SOC Providers Create This Problem
Most SOC provider contracts reward the wrong behaviors. Vendors get paid for processing volume, not risk reduction. When success metrics focus on tickets closed rather than meaningful security improvements, you get exactly what you’re measuring: more tickets.
Over time, your team slows down and loses the depth they need to move fast. Your internal team spends time validating false positives instead of hunting threats. Alert fatigue sets in. Real incidents get buried in noise. Change becomes risky because you can’t distinguish signal from static.
How to Test Your Current SOC Provider Performance
Ask yourself these critical questions about your security operations center:
- Is our MTTR improving quarter over quarter?
- Are false positives decreasing?
- Is automation adoption tracked and rewarded?
- Do analysts spend more time on investigations or administrative overhead?
- Can your team distinguish real threats from noise quickly?
Most importantly: Does your SOC provider resist automation because it reduces their billable hours?
If your SOC reports keep getting noisier, it’s time to demand proof of risk reduction.
We can help you benchmark your provider against operator-level standards.
Steps to Fix SOC Provider Incentive Problems
Effective SOC operations start with the right metrics and incentive alignment. Focus on meaningful outcomes like faster incident resolution for genuine threats, not ticket volume. Alert tuning should reduce noise over time, not create new categories of low-value alerts.
Mature security environments benefit from automation for routine alert triage and response. If your SOC provider resists automation because it reduces billable activity, that’s a red flag. Proper query optimization and conditional logic can significantly reduce alert volume in well-configured environments.
SOC contracts should reward outcomes–faster incident resolution, reduced false positive rates, successful threat hunting–not processing volume.
The Business Cost of High-Volume SOC Activity
When SOC providers prioritize activity over outcomes, the cost shows up in ways that hurt your organization:
- Security analyst turnover: Your best people leave when they spend their time on noise instead of security work
- Slower threat response: Real threats get lost in the volume, extending response time when it matters most
- Wasted security budget: You’re paying for theater, not protection
- Lost executive confidence: Leadership loses trust when security reports don’t translate to measurable risk reduction
What Effective SOC Monitoring Looks Like
Effective SOC partnerships focus on environment maturity and measurable improvement. Alert volumes should decrease over time as tuning improves. Automation should handle routine tasks so analysts can focus on complex threat investigations. Security metrics should track risk reduction, not activity.
When evaluating SOC providers, ask specific questions: How do they measure success? What’s their approach to alert tuning and automation? Do they get paid more for processing more tickets? How do they demonstrate risk reduction over time?
Time to Demand Better SOC Provider Performance
If your current SOC provider seems more interested in generating activity than reducing risk, it’s worth evaluating your options. Look for operators who understand that good security often means fewer alerts, not more. Partners who invest in environment tuning, automation, and analyst efficiency rather than impressive-looking dashboards.
The goal isn’t a busy SOC. It’s a secure organization that can move faster because security operations are efficient, automated, and focused on genuine threats.
Your security budget deserves better than theater. It deserves outcomes.
Ready to benchmark your SOC against operator-level standards? Schedule a brief SOC assessment to evaluate whether your current provider is delivering security or just activity. Test if outsourced IT follows your security protocols.
About Accelerynt
Accelerynt delivers Microsoft-native security operations–quantifying tool ROI, testing controls, and mapping risk to business impact using Sentinel, Defender, and Purview. Every engagement includes guaranteed delivery with refund-backed outcomes.
Contact us to schedule your risk-free assessment.