RSAC is always a good pulse check on where the security world is headed. If you’re only watching the headlines, you might think the conversation is all about AI or the latest breach. But walking the floor and talking with actual practitioners tells a deeper story. Under the buzzwords and headlines, there’s a real shift happening in how security teams think about their data, their tools, and how they stitch everything together. Here are five takeaways from RSAC 2025 that might not make the front page of a news article but are shaping real decisions behind the scenes.
1. SIEM Fatigue Is Real-But the Market Isn’t Dying, It’s Evolving
Despite widespread dissatisfaction with legacy SIEMs-especially around cost, complexity, and user experience-most organizations aren’t abandoning SIEM entirely. Instead, they’re rethinking its role. Modern security operations are moving toward modular architectures, where SIEMs act as “query layers” for high-value, curated data, while data lakes and telemetry pipelines) handle storage, enrichment, and routing upstream[2][8][9]. This shift is reducing both costs and friction, but also means SIEMs are becoming more strategic and less monolithic.
2. Telemetry Pipelines Are the New SOC Backbone
The most forward-thinking organizations are building normalized telemetry pipelines to preprocess, enrich, and route security data before it ever reaches a SIEM or data lake. This approach cuts SIEM costs by filtering out noise, accelerates investigations, and allows teams to migrate to new platforms in parallel without disrupting existing workflows. A pipeline-first model is quietly becoming the operational standard for mature security teams.
3. Compliance Is the Anchor Slowing SIEM Migration
One underappreciated reason SIEMs remain entrenched is their deep integration with compliance and audit workflows. Even as technical teams clamor for change, many enterprises are hesitant to migrate away from SIEMs due to regulatory mandates and years of embedded detection logic[2][4]. This “compliance gravity” means that SIEM transitions are slower and more deliberate than vendor hype suggests.
4. Security Leaders Want Choice-But Fear Change Fatigue
There’s a strong appetite for flexibility and vendor independence, with many leaders exploring multi-platform architectures and expressing frustration at SIEM “lock-in”[6]. However, there’s also a real concern about change fatigue among SecOps teams, who may resist new tools or workflows after years of investment in their current SIEM environments. Successful organizations are mitigating this by using data pipelines to validate new platforms in parallel, ensuring a smoother transition and maintaining team confidence[8][9].
5. The Conversation Has Shifted from “What SIEM?” to “How Much SIEM?”
At RSAC 2025, the question isn’t whether to have a SIEM, but how much of the security stack should depend on it. Leaders are increasingly asking, “Why do we need a SIEM with Cribl and AISOC technologies?” and experimenting with routing only the most valuable, context-rich data into SIEMs while sending bulk telemetry elsewhere[2]. This selective approach is enabling organizations to optimize both cost and detection fidelity, and is a clear sign that the future of security operations is about right-sizing-not just replacing-legacy platforms.
Wrap up: what’s next?
The big story from RSAC 2025 isn’t that SIEM is dead. It’s that security teams are getting smarter about how they use it. The best teams are optimizing for flexibility, cost, and team energy by building around pipelines and using SIEM more strategically. If you’re still looking at your security stack the same way you did three years ago, you’re behind. The future isn’t rip and replace. It’s adapt and right-size.
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These insights reflect a nuanced, ground-level view of how security operations are evolving, and should help teams anticipate both the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Sources
[1] RSAC 2025 Recap: Why The Future Of Cybersecurity Belongs To Unified Platforms
[2] Market Guide 2025: The Rise of Security Data Pipelines & How SIEMs Must Evolve
[3] 10 Cybersecurity Companies Making Big Moves At RSAC 2025 - CRN
[4] KuppingerCole Analysts predicts SIEM Platforms Market to grow to 8.6 bn USD by 2025
[5] Security Information and Event Management Market
[6] Cribl + Anvilogic: Breaking SIEM Lock-In Together
[7] Growth Dynamics, Emerging Trends, and Strategic Opportunities
[8] How to Build a Successful SIEM Migration Strategy
[9] SIEM Migration Simplified with Cribl and Data Pipelining
