Security teams have more information than ever. Security operations centers (SOCs) face many challenges, including visibility gaps, tool sprawl and the growing complexity of modern environments. Even as some organizations work to improve data collection and visibility, many SOCs are still experiencing information overload.

Threat feeds, alerts, network logs, endpoint activity, cloud environments, applications and identity systems all generate constant streams of security signals. Yet 60% of organizations believe they do not properly utilize and manage their cybersecurity tools, according to IDC¹—an indication that tool expansion can add complexity without improving clarity. The result is a familiar challenge for security teams: more data, more dashboards and more alerts, but not always a clear understanding of what deserves attention right now.

When security data lacks the context to drive action

The challenge is not that security teams lack information. The challenge is that information often arrives without enough relevant insight to make it useful. Security teams face challenges across every stage of cybersecurity. Organizations continue to work to improve visibility, strengthen protections, and close critical security gaps. As investments in security technologies grow, many teams encounter a different challenge during threat detection and response: too much information without enough context. IDC found that 42% of organizations identify real-time monitoring and threat detection as the primary gaps in their cybersecurity programs¹, making it harder to distinguish meaningful threats from background noise.

A single alert may point to suspicious activity—but without understanding where it came from, what systems it could affect, how it connects to broader threat activity and whether it matters to the business—teams are left to investigate in isolation. As environments become more distributed and threats become more sophisticated, this lack of context can slow response, increase operational strain and make security teams feel reactive even when they are surrounded by data.

That issue is compounded by years of security tool expansion. Organizations have invested in solutions for endpoint protection, network monitoring, access management, cloud security, compliance, detection and response. Each tool may serve an important purpose, but together they can create a fragmented environment that is difficult to manage. Alerts may live in different systems. Data may be collected in different formats. Investigations may require analysts to move across multiple dashboards before they can understand what is happening.

This fragmentation creates a hidden cost. Security teams spend more time connecting the dots and less time acting on what they find. Analysts may see pieces of the threat story, but not the full picture. A suspicious connection, a malicious IP address or an unusual login attempt may all be meaningful, but only if teams can understand how those signals relate to the organization’s environment and risk profile.

Without that connection, even valuable intelligence can become noise. The result is slower investigations, increased alert fatigue, delayed response times and inefficient use of already limited security resources. When analysts spend their time piecing together information across disconnected tools, organizations face a greater risk of missing high-priority threats or responding too late to minimize impact.

Turning intelligence into action

With data overload, threat intelligence is more important than ever. It provides contextualization to understand what threats are most severe and not. Organizations are increasingly prioritizing the protection of complex environments—but threat intelligence becomes valuable only when it helps teams understand which risks are most urgent, relevant and actionable. Context helps analysts see what is happening, why it matters and what to do next.

In other words, intelligence needs to move beyond awareness to support prioritization, response and confidence.

This shift is especially important as organizations protect increasingly complex environments. Cloud adoption, hybrid work, distributed applications, edge locations and AI-driven initiatives have changed the way businesses operate. Security teams are no longer defending a single, clearly defined perimeter. They are protecting users, workloads, devices, applications and data that move across many environments. In this reality, isolated views are not enough.

The network plays a critical role in solving this problem. Because the network connects users, devices, applications, cloud workloads and business systems, it offers a broad view of how digital environments operate. It can reveal patterns, connections and activity that may not be visible through individual tools alone. When paired with threat intelligence, network visibility can help security teams understand not only that something is suspicious, but why it matters in the context of their environment. Because the network connects users, devices, applications and data, it can reveal patterns and relationships that individual security tools may only see in isolation.

This is where threat intelligence becomes more actionable. For example, a malicious IP address on its own may have limited value. But when teams have the context behind an IP address and how it is being used, its threat history and its presence in their environment, they can then respond more quickly and confidently. Context helps teams determine what to investigate, what to escalate and what can be deprioritized.

How visibility, intelligence and response work together

Visibility provides awareness, intelligence adds context and enforcement enables action. Together, these elements help security teams move from understanding threats to responding with greater clarity, consistency and confidence.

Integrated approaches can also help reduce the burden created by tool sprawl. Instead of forcing teams to interpret disconnected alerts across separate systems, it can help streamline workflows and improve prioritization. The goal is not necessarily to reduce the number of tools an organization uses, but to make sure tools, services and data sources work together to support fast decisions and better outcomes.

This matters because security teams are under pressure to do more with fewer resources. They are expected to protect business continuity, support digital transformation, maintain compliance and respond to threats that are moving faster than ever. In that environment, information alone does not solve the problem. Teams need intelligence that is grounded in context and connected to action.

For security leaders, the takeaway is clear: improving threat intelligence is not only about adding more feeds, dashboards or tools. It requires connecting visibility, research and response in a way that helps teams prioritize risk faster and act with greater confidence.

How Lumen turns threat intelligence into action

Lumen brings a differentiated perspective to this challenge because its security approach starts with the network. Security should not be treated as something added after connectivity decisions are made. It should be part of the foundation that helps organizations connect, operate and innovate securely.

Through Black Lotus Labs®, the Lumen threat intelligence and research organization, we apply broad network visibility to help identify, track and disrupt threat activity across the internet. Our researchers track 2.3 million unique threats and 46,000 command-and-control servers daily, illustrating the scale of data security teams must sort through to identify attacks and turn large volumes of threat data into actionable intelligence. It gives teams a clear path from insight to action and helps security leaders make better use of limited resources by directing people and processes toward the risks that have the greatest potential impact.

That visibility matters because many attacks begin long before they reach an endpoint or firewall.

By observing activity across the network, Lumen can help uncover threat patterns earlier and turn those insights into intelligence that is relevant, timely and actionable for customers. In some cases, Black Lotus Labs has identified threats before competitors, demonstrating how broad network visibility can help security teams recognize threats sooner and improve the window for response.

For security teams, that broader visibility is especially valuable as the threat landscape continues to shift—a theme explored in greater depth in the latest Lumen Defender Threatscape Report.

Network-based threat intelligence in action

Black Lotus Labs helps transform network visibility into actionable security insights by:

• Identifying and tracking malicious activity across the global Lumen Network before it reaches customer environments
• Investigating and disrupting unauthorized infrastructure associated with botnets, command-and-control operations and other internet-scale threats
• Generating actionable threat intelligence to help organizations prioritize risk and focus on security efforts where they matter most
• Providing unmatched network visibility and insights that enable security teams to detect, understand and respond to threats more effectively

Lumen Defender security solutions combine network-level protection, intelligence-driven insights and managed security expertise to help organizations simplify complexity, strengthen resilience and protect environments from edge to core. Across the portfolio, solutions such as Lumen Defender℠ Advanced Managed Detection and Response (AMDR) help security teams correlate network intelligence with threat detection and response activities, while Lumen® DDoS Mitigationhelps identify and disrupt large-scale attacks before they impact critical services. Together, these solutions show how Lumen connects visibility, intelligence and response to help organizations accelerate action and improve security outcomes.

For security leaders, that distinction matters. Many providers can offer alerts, dashboards or threat feeds. Lumen helps bring the context into the security strategy itself by combining one of the world’s most connected networks with proprietary threat research and integrated security capabilities. That combination helps organizations move beyond reactive alert management and toward a more proactive, intelligence-driven model of defense.

The future of cybersecurity will not be defined by who has the most dashboards, alerts or feeds. It will be defined by who can turn intelligence into action before threats impact the business. As cyberthreats continue to grow in scale and sophistication, security teams need more than additional tools and data sources. They also need access to insights that provide broad context and early visibility into emerging threats earlier visibility, broader context and intelligence they can act on with confidence. By combining insights from one of the world's largest networks with the research expertise of Black Lotus Labs, Lumen helps organizations move beyond reactive security operations and focus on detection, response and risk mitigation efforts.

Because in modern cybersecurity, information alone isn’t enough. What matters most is knowing what to do next.

Start turning intelligence into action. Read the latest Lumen Defender Threatscape Report to gain deeper insights into emerging threats, adversary activity and the evolving cybersecurity landscape.

_{¹IDC, InfoBrief: The new cybersecurity equation: risk, response, and business outcomes, February 2025.}

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