This is a running count of new security events the SmartEvent correlation process has handled. An admin watches this counter's rate as the basic heartbeat of whether event correlation is keeping pace with incoming logs from the gateway estate, and a rate that suddenly drops to near zero, while gateways keep logging normally, signals a correlation backlog or stall rather than a genuinely quiet network. For example, this counter's hourly rate dropping from a typical 50,000 to under 100 would indicate the correlation engine has stalled rather than that attacks have actually stopped.