Why using non-dedicated tools for security incident response is a risky bet

You’d be amazed by how many professionals are handling the security of entire organizations using generic tools.

Tooling is everything when it comes to incident response, yet some decision-makers are asking SOC analysts and CSIRT teams to use basic ticketing or collaborative tools, or even Spreadsheets. Why? Usually, it’s a budget issue or the desire to centralize everything into one platform that does it all, no matter the consequences.

Honestly, it doesn’t really matter which incident response platform you choose—but you must choose one that allows you to fully integrate your workflows and that helps your team gain maturity.

Let’s walk through a scenario. Imagine your team is facing a true positive, a major security incident, and you’re forced to handle it through a traditional issue tracking tool.

First, you open the issue and start assigning tasks, moving things around on a board. Now, you need to correlate data from different parts of the incident, identify observables and track each step of the investigation.

This will take considerable work.

It’s not just a matter of time; it’s about the manual effort involved. Every time your analysts discover a new IP, email or domain, they’ll need to copy-paste that information into external tools, whether it’s a threat intelligence database or a sandbox for further analysis.

Want to run an IP through VirusTotal or MISP? You’ll have to go back and forth, tab to tab, copy-pasting everything. Each piece of data will need to be checked, time-stamped (because paste time won’t match the actual analysis time) cross-referenced and validated manually.

All the while, analysts are losing precious time on tasks that could be automated, and all the work done is lost as soon as the analysts closes the tab.

Now, take that same scenario and throw it into an instant messaging app for incident response. Managing observables would be difficult.

One would have to create a thread for each task and scroll through hundreds of messages to find important information.

Tracking a timeline would be a struggle and any correlation between data points would require constant back-and-forth between different apps, analyzers and systems. Just like with a ticketing tool’s incident response procedures, you’d be spending more time moving between tools than actually investigating.

The situation gets worse when you try to automate. Sure, you could use Zapier or N8n to set up workflows, but that would take hours of configuring, testing and maintaining. And for what? A workflow that only handles a fraction of what an incident response platform does by default.

Plus, with pricing models based on the number of ‘tasks,’ the economic impact can quickly spiral out of control, making it tough to estimate costs upfront. And once you need to change or update those automations, it’s back to square one—endless maintenance and rising costs.

Once your analysts are done with the investigation, they’ll need to build a report.

In a proper incident response platform, this process is automated and integrated with everything the team has done. But if you’re using a ticketing tool, an instant messaging app or a combination of basic tools, drafting reports will take time—loads of time.

You’d have to build it from scratch every time, in a text editing software or on a messaging app, in bullet points. It’s impractical as well as risky: in the process of completing this manual task, one could omit critical game-changing information.

When an incident is resolved, you need to ensure the report is well-organized, easily retrievable and accessible later on. What if, months down the line, a new incident arises that is correlated with the previous one? How will you go back to it in a ticketing system or messaging app? How will you identify the connection?

This also complicates onboarding new hires, as they’ll need to navigate across multiple platforms, increasing the chances of mistakes. Worse, platform updates could create incompatibilities that disrupt the entire process.

Without proper tooling, you risk losing critical context and making poor decisions in the future.

Reporting is not just an afterthought. It’s a key part of incident response, crucial for keeping top management informed and up to date. Yet, using basic tools makes this another manual task that could have been handled by an incident response platform automatically.

You’re asking analysts to do more busywork instead of focusing on what truly matters.

In this setup, you’re not just asking analysts to handle incidents—you’re asking them to build and maintain their own tools. That’s not their job.

Analysts shouldn’t have to wrestle with heavy procedures just to manage cases—that’s where incident response platforms come in, optimizing these tasks so they can focus on investigation.

At StrangeBee, we speak to hundreds of analysts to understand their needs, their workflows and their daily pain points. We know what’s missing and we’re constantly improving the platform to reflect that.

A purpose-built platform brings together insights and automation that would be challenging for any individual or team to match on their own, no matter how resourceful.

Incident response platforms are designed to make your life easier.

In TheHive, we’ve focused specifically on the manpower behind incident response, with the mission to facilitate this work and make it more effective. Our platform automates the repetitive, mundane tasks that would otherwise eat up your day—things like correlating observables, running analyzers, building timelines, managing case reports, and generating automated reports.

These platforms take care of that by default. They give you visibility into what’s happening in real time, tracking every task, every observable, and every move your team makes. The timeline is there, the analysis is there, the reports are there and the data correlation is swift.

With a dedicated case management tool, analysts can focus on real cyber threats instead of cobbling together manual processes. After all, the time you lose is time attackers can exploit.

At the end of the day, the tools you use define the success of your security operations.

It’s not even about which incident response platform you choose; it’s about using one.

Relying on basic ticketing, collaborative or Spreadsheets for incident response is not just inefficient; it represents a weakness for your team. Don’t risk your organization’s security on tools that aren’t made for the job.

Opting for a purpose-built platform is likely far less costly than facing a critical security incident—and it makes analysts’ daily work smoother and more effective. The gain in efficiency alone justifies the investment.