Why monitoring is not the same as Threat Detection

In recent months, cybersecurity has once again been high on the agenda. AI-driven attacks, misuse of legitimate tools, and supplier data breaches show that visibility alone is not enough. Yet in conversations with organizations we often hear the same 'reassuring sentence': 

"We have arranged monitoring well." 

Logs are collected, dashboards are running and alerts are coming in. But that feeling of control often turns out to be a false sense of security. Major incidents over the past year, from ransomware at healthcare facilities to supply-chain attacks in industry, show a recurring pattern: organizations saw activity, but did not recognize the danger in time. 

According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025, it still takes an average of more than two hundred days worldwide for a data breach to be discovered and contained. In those months, attackers can operate unhindered. Not due to a lack of data, but due to a lack of interpretation. The real challenge is not in looking, but in understanding and acting accordingly. 

Sight is valuable, but not enough 

Monitoring is indispensable. It provides insight into what is happening in your IT environment. Logs are collected, network traffic is tracked, and user activity is recorded. This shows that something is happening, but not whether it also poses a risk. 

And that's exactly where it goes wrong. In many organizations, it remains with observation without interpretation. Security teams see activity, but don't recognize a pattern. Especially now that attacks are becoming more automated and subtle. Think of AI-generated phishing, abuse of legitimate management tools or 'living off the land' techniques, monitoring falls short without interpretation. 

Dutch figures confirm this picture. The Dutch Data Protection Authority received more than 25,000 reports of data breaches last year. A large part of them were only discovered weeks or months later. The damage can amount to hundreds of thousands of euros per incident, not to mention reputation and repair costs. 

Threat detection therefore adds a crucial layer: understanding what you see. Not just collecting data, but recognizing coherence. By analyzing behavior, correlating events and adding context, insight is gained into what is normal and what can be an indication of an attack. As the NCSC puts it: detection is about recognizing deviant and malicious behavior, not about simply keeping logs. 

Why this topic belongs at board level

Cyber threats are no longer an IT problem, but a strategic risk. They directly affect business continuity, reputation and legal responsibility. It is therefore crucial for administrators to understand what is hidden behind the reassuring message "we have monitoring in order". Because if threats are not recognized quickly, financial and legal consequences are often inevitable. 

This is evident from hard figures. According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025, the average cost of a data breach worldwide is more than $4.4 million; in the US, this even rises to over 10 million. Organizations that detect threats early and respond effectively reduce their damage by almost half on average. 

The impact is also tangible closer to home. The incident at the British service provider Capita led to recovery costs of approximately 25 million pounds and a fine of 14 million. Not because there was no security, but because signals were recognized too late.  

The Cyber Security Assessment Netherlands also shows that Dutch organisations remain structurally targeted. Attacks on education, healthcare and business regularly cause service outages, repair costs and loss of trust. For administrators, this is a clear task: not only questions whether systems are monitored, but especially whether signals are understood. Effective detection increasingly determines the resilience of the organization and thus the continuity of business operations. 

From many reports to the right signals 

Many organizations are now experiencing the downside of mature monitoring: an abundance of reports without context. Security teams are inundated with alerts on a daily basis, most of which pose no real threat. This leads to delays, alert fatigue and the risk of missing real incidents. 

For drivers, this means that dashboards full of data do not automatically provide insight into resilience. The question is not how many reports come in, but how many of them really matter and how quickly they are responded to. Without this interpretation, it remains difficult to make responsible choices about risk, capacity and investments. 

Threat detection helps to filter out that noise. Through smart correlation, behavioral analysis and automation, patterns become visible that are relevant. This creates focus: what requires immediate action and what can be ignored. Research by IBM shows that organizations that detect faster and respond adequately are able to reduce their damage per incident by an average of almost $2 million. 

Steering for resilience, not dashboards 

The distinction between monitoring and threat detection only becomes meaningful when it becomes part of the way an organization accounts for its digital resilience. Not by reporting how many tools are running or how many alerts have been handled, but by measuring what really matters: 

• How quickly do we recognize an attack?
• How effectively do we respond ?
• How much noise do teams have to process before a real incident is noticed? 

These questions make the translation from technology to governance. They shift the focus from visibility to agency; from measuring what is happening to understanding how well we respond. This creates a common language between IT, security and management. 

By focusing on resilience, cybersecurity is given the same status as other strategic risks: measurable, negotiable and linked to clear performance. In this way, security is no longer a matter of dashboards, but of decision-making and continuity.