Definition
Alert fatigue is a phenomenon where an overwhelming volume of security alerts causes individuals to disregard or miss critical warnings. This occurs when security systems generate too many notifications, many of which are false positives or low priority, leading to desensitization. Consequently, security professionals may overlook genuine threats amidst the noise, significantly degrading the effectiveness of security monitoring. For instance, a security analyst might ignore a critical intrusion alert because they have already processed dozens of similar, benign notifications that day. This differs from alert drowning, which is the sheer volume of alerts without necessarily implying a loss of vigilance. Alert fatigue is a key concept tested on CompTIA Security+, CySA+, and CISSP examinations.