##### Press release # New UpGuard Research: Security Teams Waste 43% of Response Time on Manual Context Gathering ##### [UpGuard Team](#) March 18, 2026 #### *Alert overload is leading to critical blind spots, with 79% of organizations having been notified of a threat by external third parties * ‍ **Mountain View, California - March 18, 2026** - [UpGuard](https://www.upguard.com/), a leader in cyber security and risk management, today released its [*2026 Context Gap Report*](https://www.upguard.com/resources/the-context-gap), a benchmark study that reveals the structural failure in how mid-market security teams manage alert volumes. The research reveals that this "Context Gap" wastes valuable hours and ultimately contributes to delayed remediation and security incidents. Mid-size organizations, particularly those with lean security teams, also bear a heavier cyber security burden because they frequently face threat volumes comparable to those of large enterprises but lack enterprise-level resources, resulting in a disproportionately higher risk. UpGuard’s survey of 400 security leaders also highlights how AI is amplifying and accelerating cyberattacks at a volume and speed that is bogging down security operations and a team’s ability to remediate. This alert overload is causing critical blind spots as 79% of organizations were notified of a threat by third parties such as researchers, customers, or attackers before their own internal detection.  Companies that delay remediation are far more likely to miss real threats. **The Triage Trap: When Noise Becomes Real Risk** The report identifies a critical bottleneck in the investigation process, where doubt serves as the primary time-sink for analysts. * The Triage Tax: The median security team spends 20 minutes dismissing a single junk alert. * The Exposure Gap: For 25% of organizations, manual triage requires 214 hours per week (the equivalent of 5.3 full-time employees), making it mathematically impossible for human teams to maintain proactive defense. * Tool Sprawl Backfire: Organizations utilizing more than five disconnected security tools are twice as likely to miss critical threats compared to those with an integrated toolset. "Security teams aren't slow at fixing threats — they're buried in the work of understanding them", said Greg Pollock, director of Research at UpGuard.** **"When 43% of a security team’s investigation time is consumed by manual context gathering, the downstream cost is measurable: in 79% of companies, it took a customer, a researcher, or law enforcement to find what their own tools missed. This is a wake-up call. Detection without context is just noise with a timestamp." **AI: The Source of and Solution to the Context Gap** While AI is powering live cyberattacks at a speed humans alone cannot match, it also offers the only path to closing the Context Gap. * Proactive Advantage: Teams that streamline efforts with consolidated tooling and unified attack-surface visibility can collapse "Time-to-Context" from hours to seconds. * Virtuous Cycles: Automated context gathering allows analysts to focus on high-value decision-making, leading to lower rates of delayed remediation and fewer incidents. The findings reinforce the shift toward better outcomes by reducing time-to-context, helping teams prioritize what matters, routing issues to the right owners faster, and responding with enterprise-level speed even with limited resources. To read the full report, including additional stats and insights on the “Context Gap” visit https\://www\.upguard.com/resources/the-context-gap. Copies of the report will also be made available to attendees of **RSAC 2026 Conference **March 23-26 at UpGuard’s booth #N-5885. Additionally, Pollock will be speaking March 24 at 5:10 p.m. PDT in the South Hall Briefing Center on the topic “From Crisis to Confidence: Cyber Defense ROI When Every Dollar Counts.” ‍ **Methodology** To understand the time cost for detecting and responding to external threats UpGuard surveyed 400 information security leaders in North America, APAC, and India. The survey was conducted by Dynata, a market research firm with the worldˇs largest pool of first-party data respondents.  ‍ **About UpGuard** Founded in 2012, [UpGuard](https://www.upguard.com/) is a leader in cybersecurity and risk management. The company's AI-powered platform for Cyber Risk Posture Management (CRPM) provides a centralized, actionable view of cyber risk across an organization's vendors, attack surface, and workforce. Trusted by thousands of companies, UpGuard's platform is designed to help security teams manage cyber risk with confidence and efficiency. UpGuard is headquartered in Hobart, Tasmania with US headquarters in Mountain View, California. To learn more, visit [www.upguard.com](http://www.upguard.com). ‍ \### #### **MEDIA CONTACT** Julie Huang   ### Sign up for our newsletter UpGuard's monthly newsletter cuts through the noise and brings you what matters most: our breaking research, in-depth analysis of emerging threats, and actionable strategic insights. ## UpGuard blog Learn about the latest issues in cybersecurity. #### [PHP2Shell Is a Vendor Problem Too: How to Find and Close Third-Party Exposure](/blog/php2shell-third-party-exposure) Your vendors run PHP too. Here’s how to find which ones are exposed to PHP2Shell and prove they’ve patched, using scanning and a vendor questionnaire. [](/team/cassy-van-eeden) [Cassy van Eeden](#) November 2, 2026 #### [Find Out if You're Exposed on the Dark Web](/blog/find-out-if-youre-exposed-on-the-dark-web) Answer 5 quick questions to predict what a dark web scan will find about your company. Then run the free scan to see your real exposure. [](/team/lance-turner) [Lance Turner](#) October 14, 2026 #### [The Evidence Is In: UpGuard Named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Third-Party Risk Management](/blog/upguard-named-leader-in-idc-marketscape) UpGuard has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Third-Party Risk Management Services 2026 Vendor Assessment. Find out why. [](/team/cassy-van-eeden) [Cassy van Eeden](#) October 18, 2026 #### [Your First Dark Web Scan Report, Explained](/blog/your-first-dark-web-scan-report-explained) You scanned your domain. What do the results mean? [](/team/lance-turner) [Lance Turner](#) October 11, 2026 #### [We Researched Four AI Evidence Analysis Tools for TPRM. Here’s What We Found.](/blog/ai-evidence-analysis-tools-for-tprm) We researched four AI evidence-parsing tools against four criteria that security teams often overlook. None nailed all four. [](/team/cassy-van-eeden) [Cassy van Eeden](#) September 29, 2026 #### [12 Cybersecurity Horror Stories of 2026 (No Costume Required)](/blog/cybersecurity-horror-stories-2026) A warning ignored once becomes a headline. Read more about these 12 real 2026 cybersecurity incidents, and the sign each one gave before it made the news. [](/team/revashni-moodley) [Revashni Moodley](#) October 14, 2026 [View all blog posts](/blog) ## See UpGuard In Action Book a free, personalized onboarding call with one of our cybersecurity experts. [Contact sales](/demo) [Free demo](/demo) ##### Free instant security score ## How secure is your organization? 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