How long can outdated systems last in today's cloud-driven, threat-dense environment? Experts say it may not be worth the time and money to keep these systems. For years, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions have been an integral part of cybersecurity, but as the digital environment becomes increasingly complex, older SIEM systems pose significant challenges to the security professionals managing them.

If you are weighing the pros and cons of replacing an old system or are concerned about your system aging, it may be worth considering the drawbacks of not migrating to a new solution before your system becomes a hassle. Traditional systems often struggle to handle growing data volumes and evolving cyber threats. The cost of maintaining these systems can be high, and they may not integrate smoothly with newer security tools, leading to inefficiencies.

A major drawback of older versions is that they may not be able to handle the dynamic scaling requirements of cloud environments. They may struggle with the elasticity needed to manage sudden surges in data volume or traffic. Older versions typically have limited scalability and flexibility. The Chief Information Security Officer of , a nonprofit healthcare system serving parts of Philadelphia and its suburbs, believes that these older systems lack scalability and flexibility primarily due to cost issues rather than technical limitations.

The performance of traditional closed-source and open-source solution giants can reach the level achievable by their management analyst teams. We find ourselves facing increasing challenges as the costs of ingestion and computation far exceed those of infrastructure. The Chief Analyst stated that due to the long existence of some tools, they often struggle to handle large volumes of data due to issues arising from transitioning to the cloud.

Many vendors have encountered difficulties in transitioning their functionalities to the cloud, but they also face the risk of needing to integrate a series of acquired products rather than building tools that naturally and natively work together, which poses issues, particularly for practitioners who must switch between a range of different tools.

Maintaining and updating legacy solutions can be challenging for various reasons, including a lack of experienced staff, according to solution experts. Chief Analysts say, "It depends, but generally, for organizations, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find experienced personnel to operate and maintain some of the older legacy systems."

Finding personnel who maintain newer systems is relatively easy, but these individuals often come at a high cost. This is also a challenge for vendors, as they must maintain and test two sets of features: one for the cloud version and another for the existing on-premises version. The Program Head and Instructor for the Cybersecurity and Information Assurance Graduate Program at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology stated that maintaining and updating traditional solutions is a complex, resource-intensive, and costly task.

These legacy systems often require frequent manual updates to remain effective, including keeping up with the latest threat signatures and log source formats. Unlike modern solutions, traditional approaches typically lack automatic update capabilities, forcing security teams to invest significant time and effort in patch management, system tuning, and configuration changes. This manual maintenance not only consumes valuable resources but also slows response times and reduces the overall efficiency of security operations.

Organizations must ensure that archived data remains accessible and compatible with system upgrades, which often requires specialized processes and significant investment. Each version upgrade complicates data migration, increasing the risk of data loss or corruption. The cumulative impact of these maintenance requirements makes it difficult for organizations to effectively scale their security operations, adding financial strain and operational overhead.

Integrating Legacy Systems with Other Security Tools Deloitte's Managing Director of Cyber Defense and Resilience, noted that a common issue is integrating legacy systems with other security tools—a problem that modern platforms do not face. Legacy systems require point-to-point integration across potentially diverse technology ecosystems, and maintaining such integration over the long term requires ongoing engineering efforts.

Modern platforms are designed with integration in mind, often from the same vendor, allowing end users to leverage pre-built integrations without extensive customization of their tools. ’s Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Information Officer, , notes that a major issue with traditional technology is that it is typically complete and expensive suites. Vendors are reluctant to break apart the suites and integrate with other vendors who may have better functionality.

One of the main challenges is being able to easily access data and send it to other systems. It is difficult to extract and parse logs in a way that downstream platforms can use cleanly. We are leveraging ., which creates a data structure that normalizes information before extraction by or other tools/systems. This simplifies how we handle large datasets and route their usage.

Integrating traditional with other security tools and systems is challenging because they are not always compatible and often use outdated methods to share data. Many traditional lack support for modern , requiring custom connectors or middleware to integrate with new technologies. Developing and maintaining these custom connectors is time-consuming and expensive, adding operational burden to security teams.

Integrating with cloud-based environments is cumbersome & the Managing Director of the Disputes and Investigations department states that making traditional systems work harmoniously with cloud environments and new technologies is a challenge. The Global Head of Network Risk and Incident Response Services at the company says: The compatibility and interpretation of traditional solutions with complex cloud-native environments and emerging technologies require significant engineering resources and experience to continuously update the integration.

Traditional systems face significant limitations when integrating with cloud-based environments and emerging technologies such as containers, microservices, and serverless architectures. Many such systems were developed before the widespread adoption of cloud services and lack the necessary connectors or native support to seamlessly retrieve data from modern cloud platforms. This poses challenges in achieving comprehensive visibility across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, leaving blind spots that attackers can exploit.

Legacy systems struggle to keep pace with the ever-evolving cyber threats. The primary issue organizations face when using traditional systems is that they generate vast amounts of unstructured data, making it difficult to detect signs of advanced threats such as ransomware and Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups. These systems are primarily designed to detect known threats using signature-based methods, but these methods are insufficient to address the complex and evolving attack techniques of today.

Modern threats often employ subtle tactics that require advanced analysis, behavior-based detection, and proactive correlation across multiple data sources—capabilities that many traditional systems lack. Additionally, traditional systems typically do not support automated threat intelligence feeds, which are crucial for staying ahead of emerging threats. They also lack integration with security orchestration, automation, and response tools, which help automate responses and streamline incident management.

Lacking these modern features, traditional systems often miss important attack warning signals and struggle to connect disparate threat indicators, making organizations more vulnerable to complex multi-stage attacks. The effectiveness of these systems hinges on the effort a company invests, a key takeaway she has gleaned from numerous practitioners over the years. Extracting value from these systems requires substantial work, as you need to continuously build new detections to ensure proper response to modern attacks. Some systems offer out-of-the-box analytics capabilities that can aid in better threat detection, but either way, you still need extensive manual effort to continuously build new detections.