EPISODE · Aug 14, 2026 · 14 MIN
10,000 Alerts a Day, 75% Cleared With Evidence Analysts Can Check | A Brand Briefing at Black Hat USA 2026 with Seth Summersett, Co-Founder and CEO of Embed Security | Hosted by Sean Martin
from The ITSPmagazine Podcast · host ITSPmagazine, Redefining Cybersecurity Podcast, Seth Summersett, Embed Security
Recorded on site at Black Hat USA 2026 in Las Vegas, Seth Summersett joins Sean Martin to talk through the volume problem that shapes a modern security operations team. Seth Summersett spent about a decade at the NSA and roughly a decade at Mandiant, finishing there as head of innovation and custom engineering, then a couple of years at Meta supporting business unit level CISOs. He co-founded Embed Security with Jeffrey Johns, who ran the data science team alongside him at Mandiant. The catalyst came from watching a managed service run on human scale day after day. Two analysts and a hundred forwarded phishing emails means someone is choosing which ones to open and carrying the ones they cannot reach. Embed Security sits downstream of existing detection investments, taking signals from SIEM, EDR, identity, and email rather than asking a team to rip and replace what it already runs. What do security analysts actually want from AI in the SOC? According to Seth Summersett, it is not a verdict. Analysts want the work off their plate in a way they can verify, which is why Embed Security built what it calls chain of evidence, showing every question asked and the path to each conclusion. Teams also test it in reverse, running previously dispositioned alerts back through the platform to compare results against their own analysts. The numbers come from a competitive bake off at one of the company's largest clients. Embed Security dispositioned roughly 75% of that client's alerts to the point where the team stopped treating them as primary work, against a daily volume above 10,000 alerts. Why not build this in house? Seth Summersett says the demo is the easy part. What follows is evaluation loops that measure a change across hundreds of thousands of alerts rather than one, governance, and a way to capture organizational knowledge automatically. In regulated sectors, auditors may ask a team to prove how a conclusion was reached and that it holds consistently. There is a people side to this as well. Embed Security has supported a wellness program at BSides across its last two events, backing a calming kit and curriculum for analysts working under incident pressure. Seth Summersett closes with consistency for leaders, since a leader looking at 10% of alerts does not have a full risk profile, and career longevity for analysts who would rather build a long run in security operations than burn out in two or three years. GUEST Seth Summersett, Co-Founder and CEO, Embed Security LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/summersett/ RESOURCES Black Hat USA 2026 event coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/black-hat-usa-2026-cybersecurity-event-coverage-in-las-vegas Embed Security: https://www.embedsecurity.com Are you interested in telling your story? ▶︎ Full Length Brand Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#full ▶︎ Brand Spotlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#spotlight ▶︎ Brand Highlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#highlight ▶︎ Get your own Brand Briefing at an upcoming event: https://www.studioc60.com/buy-brand-briefings KEYWORDS seth summersett, embed security, sean martin, brand story, brand marketing, marketing podcast, brand spotlight, black hat usa 2026, security operations, soc analyst burnout, alert triage, agentic ai security, chain of evidence, siem alert fatigue, edr alerts, ai soc platform, security analyst workflow, build versus buy security ai, security operations governance, threat investigation
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What this episode covers
One security team was working through more than 10,000 alerts a day before roughly 75% of them stopped needing a human first look. Seth Summersett explains how that number held up under a competitive bake off, and why the evidence behind each decision mattered more than the decision itself.
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10,000 Alerts a Day, 75% Cleared With Evidence Analysts Can Check | A Brand Briefing at Black Hat USA 2026 with Seth Summersett, Co-Founder and CEO of Embed Security | Hosted by Sean Martin
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