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How AI brings the OSCAR methodology to life in the SOC
When I look back on my years as a SOC lead in MDR, the thing I remember most clearly is the tension between wanting to do things the “right way” and simply trying to survive the day.
The alert queue never stopped growing. The attack surface kept expanding into cloud, identity, SaaS, and whatever new platform the business adopted. And every shift ended with the same uneasy feeling: What did we miss because there wasn’t enough time to investigate everything fully?
While different sources emphasize different challenges, recent statistics from late 2024 and 2025 reports reflect exactly what so many SOC analysts and leads feel:
- The majority of alerts are never touched. Recent surveys indicate that 62% of alerts are ignored largely because the sheer volume makes them impossible to address. Furthermore, many analysts report being unable to deal with up to 67% of the daily alerts they receive.
- The volume is unmanageable for humans. A typical SOC now processes an average of 3,832 alerts per day. For analysts trying to manually triage this flood, the math simply doesn’t add up.
- Burnout is the new normal. The pressure is unsustainable, with 71% of SOC analysts reporting burnout due to alert fatigue. This has accelerated turnover, with some SOCs seeing analyst retention cycles shrink to less than 18 months, eroding institutional knowledge.
When people outside the SOC see these numbers, they assume analysts aren’t doing their jobs. The truth is the opposite. Most analysts are doing the best work they can inside a system that was never built for volume. Traditional triage is reactive and heavily dependent on intuition. On a good day, that might work. On a bad day, it leads to inconsistent decisions, coverage gaps, and immense pressure on analysts who care deeply about getting it right.
This is where the OSCAR methodology becomes valuable again.
Why the OSCAR methodology still matters
As a SOC lead, I always wanted the team to approach alerts with organizational structure. OSCAR provides that structure by creating a clear, repeatable sequence:
- Obtain Information
- Strategize
- Collect Evidence
- Analyze
- Report
It removes guesswork and helps analysts who are still developing their skills stay grounded during chaotic shifts. But here is the reality I learned firsthand – You can only scale OSCAR so far with humans alone.
Evidence collection takes time. Deep analysis takes more time. No matter how motivated an analyst is, there are simply not enough hours in a shift to apply OSCAR to every alert manually. Most teams end up applying the methodology selectively; critical and high-severity alerts get the full OSCAR treatment, while everything else gets whatever time is left.
That gap between process and reality is exactly where Intezer enters the picture.
How Intezer operationalizes OSCAR at scale
Intezer takes the proven structure of OSCAR and executes it automatically and consistently across every alert. Instead of relying on how much energy an analyst has left 45 minutes before there shift ends, Intezer performs evidence collection, deep forensic analysis, and reporting at a speed and depth no human team could sustain.
Here is how the platform automates the methodology step-by-step:
O: Information obtained
In my SOC days, gathering context meant jumping between consoles and browser tabs, hoping nothing crashed. Intezer collects all of this instantly from endpoints, cloud platforms, identity systems, and threat intel sources. Analysts start every case with the full picture rather than a partial one.
S: Strategy suggested
Instead of relying on an analyst’s instinct about what might be happening, the Intezer platform generates verdicts and risk-based priorities immediately (with 98% accuracy). This provides critical consistency, especially for junior analysts who are still finding their confidence. Additionally, all AI reasoning is fully backed by deterministic, evidence based analysis.
C: Evidence collected
This was always the slowest part of manual investigation. Intezer collects memory artifacts, files, process information, and cloud activity in seconds. No hunting, no guessing, and no hoping you pulled the right logs before they rolled over.
A: Analysis (forensic-grade)
Intezer performs genetic code analysis, behavioral analysis, static/dynamic analysis, and threat intelligence correlation on every single alert. This is the level of scrutiny senior analysts wish they had time to do manually, but usually can only afford for the most critical incidents.
Read more about how Intezer Forensic AI SOC operates under the hood.
R: Reporting & transparency
The platform creates clear, structured, audit trails. This removes the burden of manual documentation from analysts and ensures that the “why” behind every decision is transparent and explainable.
The result: Moving beyond “speed vs. depth”
When OSCAR is coupled with Intezer’s AI Forensic SOC, the operation transforms. We see this in actual customer environments:
- 100% alert coverage: Even low-severity and “noisy” alerts are fully triaged.
- Sub-minute triage: Drastically improved MTTR/MTTD and minimized backlogs.
- 98% accurate decisioning: Verdicts are supported by deterministic evidence, reducing escalations for human review to less than 4%.
The shift in operations:
| Capability | Traditional MDR SOC | Intezer Forensic AI SOC |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Critical and High-severity | 100% of alerts |
| Triage time | 20+ mins per alert | <2 mins (automated) |
| Analyst mode | Data collector | Investigator |
From the perspective of a former SOC lead, the most important benefit is this:
”Analysts finally get to think again. Automation handles the busy work. Humans get to use judgment, creativity, and experience.”
Final thoughts
For years, triage has been treated like a speed exercise. But the threats we face today require depth, context, and clarity. OSCAR gives SOCs the investigative structure they need, and Intezer provides the scale required to actually use that structure across every alert.
For the first time, teams don’t have to choose between speed and depth. They get both.
If your SOC wants to move from reactive to truly investigative operations, we would be happy to show you what an OSCAR-driven Intezer SOC looks like in practice.
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