Alert Categories and Prioritization

SOC analysts face constant streams of alerts demanding attention. Knowing how to categorize these alerts and prioritize your response separates effective analysts from those drowning in noise. Not all alerts are equal—understanding their categories and applying systematic prioritization ensures you focus on what matters.

Alert Categories

Intrusion detection alerts signal potential unauthorized access attempts. These might come from network IDS systems detecting attack signatures, or from authentication systems reporting anomalous login patterns. Some indicate active exploitation; others reflect routine internet noise like automated scanners.

Malware alerts indicate potentially malicious software. Antivirus detections, suspicious file downloads, behavioral indicators of malware execution, or sandbox analysis results all fall here. Urgency depends on whether the malware was blocked or executed, and what capabilities it has.

Policy violation alerts flag actions breaking organizational security policies. Unauthorized software installation, data transfers to unapproved destinations, or access attempts outside permitted scope. These may indicate insider threats, compromised accounts, or simply uninformed users.

Anomaly alerts identify deviations from established baselines. Unusual login locations, abnormal data volumes, unexpected process behaviors, or statistical outliers in network traffic. These require investigation to determine whether anomalies indicate threats or legitimate changes.

Infrastructure alerts relate to security infrastructure health. Certificate expirations, failed log collection, resource exhaustion on security systems. While not attacks themselves, these issues create vulnerabilities or blind spots requiring attention.

Prioritization Factors

Severity considers what the alert indicates. An alert suggesting active data exfiltration is more urgent than one indicating a blocked phishing email. Severity classifications (Critical, High, Medium, Low) help, but analysts must also apply judgment based on specific circumstances.

Asset criticality weighs what's at risk. An alert from a server hosting customer payment data commands more attention than one from a developer workstation. Organizations should maintain asset inventories with criticality ratings that feed into alert enrichment.

Exploitability assesses how realistic the indicated threat is. A detection of an active exploit against an unpatched vulnerability is more urgent than a possible indicator that might be legitimate activity.

Context includes everything contributing to priority decision. Is this a lone alert or part of a pattern? Has this system shown other suspicious activity? Is the affected user a high-value target? what's the current threat landscape?

Building Prioritization Workflows

Define response timeframes for each priority level. Critical alerts might require 15-minute response; low-priority alerts might queue for the next business day.

Automate enrichment to support prioritization. When an alert fires, automatically gather asset criticality, user information, recent related alerts, and threat intelligence. Analysts should see context immediately, not have to hunt for it.

Review and refine continuously. Which alerts consistently prove important? Which consistently waste time? Use this data to tune detection rules and prioritization logic.