Cyber resilience is today – cyber vigilance is tomorrow

We can learn a lot about cybersecurity and cyber resilience in complex IT/OT systems from biological systems. For example, resilience research into the immune systems of living organisms has discovered mechanisms whose operating principles can be applied to the robustness of digital systems in the event of a cyberattack. In neurobiology, the concept of resilience is closely linked to the concept of vigilance. It is therefore worth taking a look at vigilance in neurobiology and how it can be transferred to cybersecurity.

“Vigilance [from Latin vigil = awake, alert], a state of alertness that enables an individual to respond without delay to stimulating situations and changes in the environment. The mechanisms of visual attention play a major role here. Stimulating situations, perceived as physical stimuli, influence this state of activity in the central nervous system, which can be further differentiated. Vigilance includes the indifferent, passive state of wakefulness, resulting in directed attention without motor activity (“alert state,” “alertness”) and then situation-appropriate motor behavior, up to and including hypermotor activity that is no longer appropriate to the situation” (source: Lexikon der Neurowissenschaft [Encyclopedia of Neuroscience]).

Vigilance—defined as sustained attention or alertness to rare, unpredictable events—is a central psychophysiological state that significantly determines human responsiveness. In psychology and neuroscience, a distinction is often made between three main states of vigilance, which can be directly applied to the performance and efficiency of human operators, such as analysts in a Security Operations Center (SOC).

In neuroscience, states of vigilance correlate with the general level of arousal of the central nervous system:

The person is awake, relaxed, but not highly focused. Attention is broad and not very selective.

In the Security Operations Center (SOC): This may be the state during routine tasks or in phases of low alert density. Analysts process standard tickets or perform preventive checks.

Responsiveness: The response time to a sudden, unexpected, but critical alarm may be prolonged. The detection rate for subtle anomalies may be suboptimal because focused sustained attention (vigilance) is not at its maximum. There is a risk of carelessness and overlooking subtle warning signs (cases of underchallenge).

This state is characterized by an optimal level that ensures maximum performance. Attention is highly selective and focused. Cognitive resources are optimally tuned to the expected task.

In the Security Operations Center (SOC): This is the ideal operating state. Analysts are mentally engaged, the alarm density is manageable, or an increased threat level is expected that requires a high level of readiness. They actively apply pattern recognition and perform targeted analyses.

Responsiveness: Response times are minimal, decision-making is precise, and the error rate is low. This is the area where the SOC achieves its highest efficiency in triaging and containing security incidents.

This state is characterized by stress, panic, and intense excitement.

In the Security Operations Center (SOC): Typically occurs during major security incidents, mass alerts, or after dramatic errors. Analysts come under high time and expectation pressure.

Responsiveness: Initially, response time is accelerated in the short term, but overall performance declines dramatically over time. This leads to tunnel vision, limited cognitive flexibility, more frequent wrong decisions, and an inability to set priorities correctly. The increased emotional stress leads to an overload of cognitive capacities, which hinders the actual forensic and analytical work and leads to rapid fatigue (cases of overload).

The challenge for SOC management is to take measures to keep analysts in a state of alert attentiveness as much as possible:

1. Avoiding the state of relaxed wakefulness: This requires the design of workflows that maintain mental activity. These include job rotation, involvement in threat hunting activities (proactive search for threats), regular training with realistic scenarios, and minimizing repetitive, boring tasks through automation (SOAR tools).
2. Promoting alert attentiveness: This is achieved through clear incident response plans, defined thresholds for alerts, effective filtering of false positives, and a structured environment. Analysts need to be confident that the alert system is reliable and that their work provides real added value ( ). A healthy working environment and sufficient breaks are essential to stabilize this optimal arousal level in the long term.
3. Cushioning strong excited emotion states: This is where escalation strategies, clear role allocation during a crisis, the appointment of an incident commander to calm and control the situation, and adherence to checklists and playbooks come into play. The discipline of following the process even under high pressure prevents a descent into overexcitement and ensures the quality of decisions. Debriefings after an incident also help to process the emotional burden and learn from mistakes made under stress.

The effectiveness and cyber resilience of a Security Operations Center (SOC) are therefore directly dependent on the ability to continuously steer and maintain the vigilance of its human analysts in the optimal range of alert attention.