Data displaces skills as threat hunting barrier
Data quality and quantity have overtaken shortages of skilled staff as the biggest obstacle facing threat hunters, marking the first time the issue has ranked first in the SANS Institute’s five-year tracking of the discipline. The SANS 2026 Threat Hunting Survey, released this week, found that 50 per cent of 500 cybersecurity practitioners and security leaders identified data quality or quantity…
Data quality and quantity have become the primary obstacle for threat hunters, surpassing the shortage of skilled personnel for the first time, according to the SANS Institute's 2026 Threat Hunting Survey. The survey, based on responses from 500 cybersecurity professionals and leaders, found that 50% of respondents cited data quality or quantity as their main barrier to effective threat hunting, compared to 45% who cited skilled staffing.
The findings suggest a shift in the operational problems facing security teams as threat hunting becomes more established. Despite eight years of experience in threat hunting, 82% of respondents reported that accumulated experience has not resolved these issues caused by incomplete, inconsistent, or fragmented telemetry. Cloud infrastructure emerged as the most challenging environment for threat hunting, cited by 32% of respondents.
The survey indicates that while capable analysts can still be constrained by the information available to them, the growing volume of data being collected is creating its own set of problems. The challenge lies not just in collecting more telemetry, but ensuring that the information is usable for investigation, with complete, accessible, and consistent records needed to test hypotheses, trace attacker activity, and distinguish malicious behavior from legitimate operations across environments.
Written by urgent.news from Arabian Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
