Build the SOC of the Future with Splunk and Cisco

I’m not one to blog, but speaking with clients, peers, and colleagues, I often hear statements like “SIEM is dead” or “this is the SOC of the future.” So what do they really mean? Honestly, I’m not entirely sure either — there are so many conflicting viewpoints and ways of addressing this.

What I am sure of, though, is that now more than ever we need to level up our monitoring game for security operations. Our industry has long struggled with point solutions solving point problems — often multiple tools for the same issue. For example, different operating systems require multiple EDR tools. This creates a patchwork of monitoring tools and data sources that need to be brought together, correlated, and enriched to detect faster, contain threats quickly, and respond more effectively. In fact, 58% of UK SOCs cite poor tool integration as their top source of inefficiency. On the other hand, teams adopting unified security platforms report significant gains: a 52% reduction in time spent on tool maintenance, a 58% improvement in incident response speed, and a 54% boost in threat coverage*.

With cyber threats evolving faster than ever — and AI now being leveraged by threat actors — we need to detect and respond at the same speed and scale as our adversaries. Over 60% of UK security leaders report a surge in AI-driven threats**. AI can support us, but only when paired with well-trained security teams using the right tools and platforms to monitor the entire network across all vulnerable assets. So, no, the SOC isn’t “dead” — it’s evolving to help organisations keep their defences strong and relevant.

This changing environment brings both challenges and opportunities for building the SOC of the future. UK teams also face gaps in data management, with 43% reporting reduced productivity due to these challenges and 57% citing high data storage costs as a major issue*. More fundamentally, visibility remains a concern: 44% of UK security teams say they lack visibility into software vulnerabilities, and 49% into third-party assets*. Rather than chasing the hype of everything needing to be “AI-enabled,” the real question is: what’s actually helping analysts defend against threats? A SIEM platform that adapts to data from all sources — IT, OT, or machine-generated, whether at the endpoint or in the network — is more important than ever.

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Discover how Splunk and Cisco empower you to:

• Elevate the SOC with agentic AI to reduce complexity and accelerate threat detection — available in two editions: Splunk Enterprise Security Premier and Essentials
• Stay ahead of attackers with real-time, AI-driven threat intelligence that enables proactive risk management
• Gain full visibility by identifying vulnerabilities across your environment with unified analytics and monitoring tools
• Respond with confidence through automated, actionable workflows, always guided by human oversight
• Unify your ecosystem by breaking down silos with open standards and interoperability, transforming machine data into actionable intelligence that fuels innovation

Ready to transform your security operations? Don’t miss our upcoming webinar, "State of Security 2025: Building a Smarter SOC for the Future", on Tuesday, 14 October 2025 at 11 AM BST / 12 PM CEST. Join experts James Hodge, Vice President, Global Specialists, Splunk and Ritesh Agrawal, Chief Growth Officer - Cybersecurity, Accenture as they discuss key findings from the State of Security 2025 report, address top SOC challenges, share strategies and leverage AI to future-proof your SOC.

Looking for more ways to boost your organisation’s digital resilience? Join us for Digital Resilience Week: Strengthening Digital Resilience in the Era of Agentic AI. Explore how unified intelligence from Splunk and Cisco empowers you to manage and secure digital operations across both traditional and AI-powered workloads. Discover practical strategies for securing and observing your entire infrastructure, and learn how AI can enhance the availability, performance, and security of your digital services. Register for Digital Resilience Week here.

_{* Source: Splunk State of Security 2025}

_{** Source: Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report 2024}