A global Kaspersky Security Services report released May 19, 2026 has identified a significant cybersecurity challenge affecting enterprise Security Operations Centers: a SOC effectiveness blind spot where organizations fail to detect threats effectively despite collecting vast amounts of data.
The report, titled ‘Anatomy of a Cyber World,’ reveals that while organizations typically measure SOC performance through detection and response speed metrics, they rarely assess whether they are detecting the right threats. According to the findings, the mean correlation rule coverage across assessed organizations stands at 43%, meaning active detection logic covers less than half of all ingested data sources.
This SOC effectiveness blind spot creates hidden gaps that internal assessments typically miss. Large portions of collected telemetry remain available for retrospective investigation and compliance purposes but remain invisible to real-time detection systems. The problem intensifies in larger organizations, where SOCs managing the highest data volumes cover only around 30% of their sources with active detection logic.
Why Data Collection Outpaces Detection Capability
The gap between collected data and active detection stems from multiple causes. Sources are sometimes onboarded without clear detection plans, with rule development deferred indefinitely. In other cases, data collection occurs to meet compliance requirements rather than operational detection needs. Resource constraints and unclear internal ownership of detection logic also contribute to the problem. As infrastructure expands, detection engineering capacity rarely scales at the same pace.
The sources most consistently left without coverage include network telemetry, databases, and web servers, despite their foundational importance to security monitoring. Meanwhile, cybersecurity teams face differing approaches to detection logic development: approximately 50% rely primarily on vendor-provided rule sets, while roughly 40% build logic from scratch. Vendor-reliant teams frequently encounter elevated false-positive rates and coverage gaps from insufficient tuning.
Internal Assessment Limitations and External Validation
Measuring SOC effectiveness internally remains challenging due to insider view bias, according to the report. Organizations typically evaluate SOCs through limited key performance indicators: mean time to respond (MTTR) and mean time to detect (MTTD) dominate assessments, while deeper indicators like false positive rates or cost per incident remain secondary.
Roman Nazarov, Head of SOC Consulting at Kaspersky, stated that organizations increasingly turn to external SOC Consulting to evaluate detection logic, analyze event flows, and simulate attacks to understand what is actually being caught. “To improve, organizations should build a structured detection engineering process: a repeatable discipline for developing, validating and regular reviewing detection logic,” Nazarov said.
Consulting Services Address Detection Gaps
To align internal processes with evolving threat landscapes, organizations can explore Kaspersky SOC Consulting, which helps build in-house SOCs from scratch, assess existing maturity, or enhance specific capabilities such as detection and response procedures. In 2025, the most common consulting projects included SOC Technical Assessment (23.4%), SOC Framework Development (20%), and both SOC Maturity Assessment and SIEM Quality Assurance (11.7% each).
These figures reflect growing organizational demand for deeper visibility into SOC performance and effectiveness. The report emphasizes that organizations should develop repeatable processes for detection logic development and regular validation to address detection engineering gaps and eliminate blind spots that accumulate as infrastructure evolves.
