2026 SANS SOC Survey Insights: A Decade of Evolution in Cyber Defense
2026 SANS SOC Survey Insights: A Decade of Evolution in Cyber Defense
The 2026 SANS SOC Survey — sponsored by Dataminr — marks a decade of tracking security operations at scale, and the findings are sobering. Across 444 practitioners and 69 CISOs, three persistent tensions have not just endured — they've sharpened.AI adoption has outrun integration: 79% of SOCs use AI or ML tools, but only 36% have built them into a defined workflow. The staffing problem remains a management problem: only 32% of practitioners feel leadership pays close attention to hiring and retention needs, a figure that hasn't moved in a decade. And the gap between executive perception and practitioner reality — a 27-point divergence on whether management is engaged — is not a communication problem. It's a structural one.The report also surfaces a critical CTI finding directly relevant to Dataminr's positioning: 80% of SOCs use threat intelligence operationally, but only 26% use it to inform budget decisions. Intelligence that drives tactics but not investment is only doing half its job.If your SOC is still measuring success by incident volume, this report explains why that needs to change — and what high-performing teams do differently.
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