You can’t secure what you can’t see—here’s how to audit and close critical telemetry gaps in your first month as CISO.
If you’re a new CISO, your inherited environment likely includes incomplete or inconsistent telemetry. The dashboards may be green, but the gaps are real, and attackers know where to find them.
The first 30 days are your opportunity to validate what your SIEM or MDR is actually seeing. Don’t wait for an incident to uncover a blind spot. These are the three most common telemetry failures we encounter, along with their quick resolution methods.
1. Identity Telemetry Gaps
What’s Missing
- Lack of detailed identity events (e.g., logins, privilege escalation, failed access attempts)
- Incomplete integration with Azure AD, Okta, or on-prem AD
- No correlation across users, devices, and session data
Why It Matters
Identity is the new perimeter. Without robust logs from your IAM systems, attackers can move laterally undetected. Missed signals here often lead to credential abuse, privilege escalation, and compliance exposure.
How to Fix It Fast
- Validate that logs from all identity providers are flowing into your SIEM/MDR
- Check normalization and parsing—raw logs are useless if unreadable
- Prioritize identity correlation in your detection logic (e.g., anomalous login + failed MFA = alert)
Quick Win Metric: % of users with full session telemetry across apps and devices
2. Cloud Control Plane Blind Spots
What’s Missing
- Missing logs from AWS CloudTrail, Azure Activity Logs, or GCP Audit Logs
- Lack of visibility into config changes, privilege escalations, or workload creation
- Delayed or throttled ingestion due to volume or cost controls
Why It Matters
Most attackers target cloud infrastructure early. If you can’t detect when permissions change, new resources spin up, or logs go dark, you’re flying blind.
How to Fix It Fast
- Audit log source coverage for all cloud accounts, not just production
- Confirm real-time ingestion with alerts on log ingestion failure
- Use native cloud tools (e.g., AWS GuardDuty) to supplement detections if SIEM lag exists
Quick Win Metric: # of critical cloud control plane sources onboarded in the first 30 days
3. Endpoint Coverage and Context
What’s Missing
- Inconsistent EDR deployment (especially on high-risk or legacy systems)
- EDR logs not reaching the SIEM or MDR platform
- Lack of correlation between endpoint data and identity/network activity
Why It Matters
Endpoints are where attackers land and pivot. If your EDR is deployed but not integrated—or missing entirely—you’ve got a false sense of security.
How to Fix It Fast
- Validate deployment across all business-critical systems (especially finance, R&D, and execs)
- Confirm that EDR telemetry is reaching the detection layer (and being used)
- Enable rollback or containment features where possible
Quick Win Metric: % of crown-jewel assets with real-time EDR coverage and correlation
Bonus: Use MDR to Bridge the Gaps Fast
If your internal team is short on time or telemetry expertise, a managed detection and response (MDR) partner can accelerate results.
- Correlate identity, cloud, and endpoint data for faster threat triage
- Highlight ingestion gaps and tune detections within your existing stack
- Deliver visibility assessments and board-ready readouts in 30 days
You don’t need a rip-and-replace to get clarity—you need the right coverage and correlation.
Your credibility as a new CISO hinges on how quickly you can see clearly and act confidently. These telemetry gaps are common but fixable. Start by validating your current coverage, then layer in detection logic that aligns with real business risk. The sooner you close the blind spots, the faster you will earn trust from your team, peers, and board.
Learn how other security leaders deliver clarity early. Download the eBook: Seven Strategies to Outmaneuver Threats for Organizational Resilience.
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