Urgency: The Silent Killer of Security Analysis
We reward speed in security...but at what cost? This post unpacks how urgency culture chips away at thoughtful analysis and what I do to fight it.
You log in and almost immediately, you’re fighting an avalanche of “urgent” requests.
Emails. Tickets. Messages. Pages. Our job is to respond to potential threats, and respond FAST.
But if you know anything about human beings, you know this: working faster, especially in a heightened emotional state, isn’t the same as working smarter. And it definitely doesn’t guarantee you’re thinking clearly enough to show up the way your role demands.
When Urgency is the Default
Security professionals are praised for being fast. We celebrate quick turnarounds, instant responses, low Time-to-Close. But is anyone asking whether we’re better at thinking…or just reacting?
Before you know it, urgency becomes the default. Take your time to respond? You look like you’re slacking. Put thoughtfulness at the forefront of your investigation? Suddenly, we’ve got stakeholders hovering. Alerts color our days, pressuring us to move quickly…but never giving us the room to analyze deeply. Our thinking gets sloppy. We stop asking good questions. We make assumptions. We grab the most obvious fix, not the right one. And that urgency? It rarely comes with grace. They want it fast and thorough.
Speed without clarity doesn’t solve much. It just creates the veneer of a secure team, with none of the polish needed to own that title. It signs us up for more fixing and tinkering, but rarely solving the root causes. And worst of all, it incorrectly lumps thoughtful investigators into the “lazy” bucket, discounting the confidence and skill it takes to be deliberate under pressure.
The Pause Is Part of the Job
Earlier in my career, when I was more eager to please, I pushed myself to make quick decisions and somehow conflated that with quality work. Leadership was happy, so I thought that meant I was doing it right. But my understanding of how my choices affected things down the line? Completely underdeveloped. A lot of security environments are reactive by nature, and I'd challenge you to ask if there's depth of understanding in those same environments.
The thing is, if incident response was meant to be fast and shallow, it wouldn’t cost so much. Both in consequences and in prevention. It behooves everyone involved, companies and employees alike, to adopt a more thoughtful approach. One that prioritizes thorough analysis over knee-jerk speed.
How I Create Space to Think When Everything Feels Urgent
I am a staunch advocate of learning, so this means that I am consistently a work in progress. Any advice I share here isn’t evidence of a perfect system; it’s evidence of someone who is trying. That said, I’ve built a few habits that help me stay clear-headed. These are some of them:
- I change my accessibility based on my workload.
While it may seem random to anyone keeping track (and let’s face it, sometimes it is), I’m intentional about how I use status settings in whatever messenger app my company runs on. Sometimes, I’m doing some deep work and we know interruptions are scientifically proven to derail productivity. During these times, I want people to pause before pinging me. That little bit of friction forces people to prioritize their ask. Boundaries without too much talking.
- When I feel rushed, I buy back time by getting curious.
When someone needs me to jump on something right now, I ask questions: Who found it? What’s the context? When did this happen? Why is this something worth pursuing? The clearer the answers, the more likely it’s urgent. The murkier or vaguer, the more likely it’s based on a passing thought or fear, not something tangible. Those requests still get handled. But they don’t automatically get prioritized.
- I re-establish priorities in the face of a new ask.
Sometimes, an anxious leader just wants results…and they want them NOW. In those moments, I push back. Is this more urgent than the deliverable due tomorrow? Should I drop normal incident response for this? Asking those kinds of questions forces a choice. It brings visibility to the work already on my plate and gives leadership a chance to recalibrate their urgency with actual clarity.
I know I kind of painted urgency as a devil to be avoided at all costs, but that’s not the full truth. Urgency has a place. It just needs to be paired with intentionality and critical thinking. Otherwise, we may as well strap ChatGPT to our incident response process and retire (This line will age terribly when AI gets better). Anyone can react. It takes true skill and mental prowess to know when to.
If this resonates with how you work (or how you want to work), let me know. What’s one way you push back against urgency culture in your own role?
