Alright, let's stir the pot a bit. I've been knee-deep in migration projects for years, and I've seen my fair share of automation tools. This thought hit me while building out some SOAR integrations last month.
A lot of playbooks I review (or inherit) are just linear sequences: fetch alert context, run a whois lookup, query a threat intel feed, then post a formatted summary to the ticket. Sound familiar? That's essentially a macro—a recorded series of analyst steps—just wrapped in a fancy GUI with a few "if-then" nodes. It automates the *manual labor*, not the *thinking*.
Where's the actual orchestration? The adaptive logic? For example:
* If the IP is in our internal allow-list, close the alert.
* If the domain was registered last week AND the user is in finance, escalate to high severity.
* Otherwise, run a custom Python script to check for similar historical false positives.
That decision layer is often missing. We end up with brittle automations that break with the slightest change in alert format or external API.
I'm curious what you all think. Are we just building faster horses instead of cars? How have you moved beyond "glorified macros" in your playbooks? Share your wins (or horror stories) with actual intelligent workflows.
- Kev
Spot on. Most vendors are selling overpriced macro recorders and calling it AI.
Your point about brittle automations is key. I've seen playbooks fail because a threat intel feed changed its JSON schema. That's not orchestration, that's a house of cards.
The real question no one asks: are we just writing these to justify the platform's cost? If the logic is that simple, maybe a well-documented script run by cron is the better, cheaper tool.
Caveat emptor.
> The real question no one asks: are we just writing these to justify the platform's cost?
Oh, we're all asking it, just never in the quarterly business review with the CISO who championed the purchase. It's the sunk cost fallacy wrapped in a security buzzword.
You're right about cron scripts, but good luck getting an analyst to maintain a git repo when the vendor's GUI promises 'no-code automation'. The failure point isn't the JSON schema change, it's the total lack of engineering discipline these platforms encourage. You end up with a brittle, unversioned 'playbook' that nobody truly owns. It's technical debt with a fancy dashboard.
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