Decathlon and Splunk: Running the cybersecurity marathon together

In a rapidly evolving retail landscape, where innovation and sports partnerships are deeply ingrained in Decathlon's DNA, cybersecurity has become an endurance sport. With 100,000 employees and infrastructure spanning local and global environments, Decathlon Digital faces a major challenge: maintaining resilience against increasingly complex threats and regulations such as NIS2. During the INCYBER 2026 Forum, Valérie Monte (Head of Cyber Defense) and Anthony Dechy (Deputy Head of Security Operations) shared the behind-the-scenes story of their SOC transformation and how Splunk has become a central hub of their ecosystem.

From reactive defense to threat hunting: An aggressive approach

Decathlon Digital's SOC initiative, launched in 2021 and fully operational since mid-2023, is built on a clear conviction: "If you're not hunting, you're losing." The idea is no longer to wait for an alert, but to assume a breach may have already occurred and actively hunt for threats. To support this ambition, Decathlon Digital has chosen to retain full ownership of its tools and infrastructure while relying on an MSSP for 24/7 monitoring. This shift has enabled the team to move from a purely reactive model to context-aware detection that can "tell a story" through data.

Data in service of people and performance

With several TB of data ingested each day from several hundred distinct sources, Splunk helps Decathlon Digital eliminate blind spots, especially during high-stakes events such as the Olympic Games, where the brand was a partner and security requirements increased. The results speak for themselves: a 10% improvement in MTTR (mean time to respond) and a significant reduction in analyst fatigue. By automating the handling of recurring alerts, such as phishing attempts, Decathlon Digital enables its experts to focus on more strategic, higher-value work.

Focus for 2026: AI and Cyber Threat Intelligence

The partnership between Splunk and Decathlon Digital is set to drive further innovation. Pragmatism remains key. The goal is not to replace everything with AI, but to use it safely and train teams to work with it. By 2027, Decathlon Digital aims to adopt semi-autonomous AI capabilities to help keep pace with attackers. The next steps also include deploying Risk-Based Alerting and integrating Cisco Talos capabilities.

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