Organizations are increasingly falling into the "compliance and tools trap," where investments in SIEM platforms and successful certification audits do not translate into real resilience against modern threats. The problem is that executives often view SIEM as a "silver bullet" for automatically solving security issues, and certification as a paper checklist for audits. In reality, a tool without a process creates only a false sense of security if not accompanied by deep operational changes.
The tool trap: why purchasing SIEM does not make a company secure
A common mistake for many organizations is treating the detection function as a software procurement task rather than a continuous operational process. Deploying a SIEM platform without proper alert mapping often leads to alert fatigue, where the SOC team physically cannot keep up with thousands of unstructured notifications and eventually misses a targeted attack.
According to the updated NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0, cyber risk management is an integral part of corporate governance. This means that security effectiveness is measured not by the presence of a tool, but by how it is integrated into the organization's daily processes. Collecting logs in a SIEM does not equal attack detection if correlation rules are not tied to specific attacker techniques.
Formal compliance versus resilience: when ISO/IEC 27001 remains on paper
A similar situation arises with achieving compliance with ISO/IEC 27001 standards or the requirements of the European NIS2 directive. Obtaining a certificate through formal documentation updates without implementing basic operational controls remains an exclusively paper-based exercise. Policies do not work without practical verification—for example, through regular testing of incident recovery plans or access rights audits.
The importance of operational resilience, rather than just nominal compliance, is confirmed by statistics. According to the ENISA Threat Landscape 2025 report, essential entities subject to the NIS2 directive accounted for 53.7% of all affected organizations between July 2024 and June 2025. This proves that formal status alone does not protect against real attacks.
Mapping to MITRE ATT&CK: turning log chaos into actionable monitoring
To avoid information noise and make monitoring actionable, SIEM effectiveness must rely on the MITRE ATT&CK framework. This knowledge base structures attacker behavior into a detailed matrix of tactics and techniques, turning raw log data into understandable threat scenarios.
For example, Google describes the page injection technique as an attacker creating new spam pages on a compromised site. If your SIEM simply accumulates web server events without linking them to this technique and verifying abnormal file write operations, the system will remain silent. Mapping alerts to MITRE ATT&CK allows the security team not only to see the event but also to understand the context of the attacker's actions to trigger an appropriate response.
Operational change: implementing real changes in daily security processes
Transitioning from the formal presence of tools to operational resilience requires restructuring the daily work of the security team. This includes the following steps:
- Developing response playbooks: Every configured alert in the SIEM must be accompanied by a clear instruction: what exactly the analyst should check and how to contain the threat.
- Proactive threat hunting: Instead of passively waiting for rules to trigger, the team should periodically search for signs of compromise in the infrastructure, assuming that detection tools might have failed.
- Cyber drills: The effectiveness of processes and instructions is verified only through the simulation of real attacks, which allows for identifying gaps between paper policies (for audits) and the actual state of affairs.
How to combine technical reliability and formal compliance: a practical approach
True security does not negate the importance of standards. On the contrary, the right approach involves integrating compliance requirements (NIS2, ISO/IEC 27001) directly into the IT system architecture. Specialists at the Intecracy Group—an alliance of independent companies linked by partner agreements and share exchanges—advocate for this exact approach, building solutions where security is a fundamental characteristic rather than an add-on after development.
Specifically, the low-code platform UnityBase is used as a foundation for mission-critical systems (a joint development of Intecracy Group companies, where InBase is a key, but not the only, developer). For high-load projects or systems with increased security requirements, official documentation recommends Enterprise or Defence editions of the platform. They contain built-in protection mechanisms: role-based access control (RBAC), row-level security (RLS), and deep user action audit trails. Thanks to this, when systems like Megapolis.DocNet or Scriptum.DMS operate on the UnityBase platform, compliance becomes a natural result of a managed architecture.
| Maturity level | Monitoring and compliance characteristics |
|---|---|
| Level 1: Formal | Logs are collected just in case; certificates are needed only for tenders; response processes are not documented. |
| Level 2: Instrumental | SIEM is implemented, but the team suffers from alert fatigue; security policies exist as static documents. |
| Level 3: Managed | SIEM alerts are tied to MITRE ATT&CK tactics; cyber drills are conducted regularly; certification is part of internal audits. |
| Level 4: Proactive | Security processes are integrated into the IT system lifecycle; continuous compliance is implemented; security is part of corporate governance under NIST CSF 2.0. |
FAQ
How can alert fatigue be avoided after implementing a SIEM?
Alert fatigue can be minimized by avoiding the activation of all 'out-of-the-box' rules in favor of targeted event mapping. Each configured alert must be tied to a specific technique within the MITRE ATT&CK framework and have a developed response playbook.
What operational changes are critical for real compliance with NIS2 and ISO/IEC 27001 requirements?
Key operational changes include: transitioning from static policies to regular testing of recovery plans (incident response drills), periodic access rights audits, conducting cyber drills for personnel, and integrating risk management into corporate governance (the Govern function per NIST CSF 2.0).
How can the MITRE ATT&CK framework be integrated into the work of an existing SOC?
One should start by auditing current detection rules in the SIEM and mapping them against the ATT&CK matrix. This will help identify uncovered tactics and techniques (blind spots). Next, new detection rules should be developed specifically for the techniques used by threat groups relevant to your industry.