Why 24/7 Threat Monitoring Remains Out of Reach for Most Teams

Cyberthreats can crop up at any time. Overnight. During weekends. Across time zones. When they operate outside the usual 9-to-5 schedule, they take advantage of reduced staffing and delayed response times, increasing their chances of breaching security barriers.

Despite this reality, many organizations still struggle to achieve true 24/7 threat monitoring.

Now this isn’t an issue caused by a lack of awareness. Companies recognize the need for 24/7 security. The issue stems from a combination of operational, financial, and human challenges that make continuous coverage difficult to sustain. 

The Staffing Reality Behind 24/7 Coverage

At first glance, 24/7 monitoring appears to be a straightforward staffing problem. In practice, it requires multiple fully trained teams rotating through shifts, with sufficient overlap to ensure continuity.

Hiring skilled security analysts is already competitive and expensive. When you extend that model across nights, weekends, holidays, etc., it simply multiplies the challenge. For many organizations, securing consistent expertise across all shifts simply isn’t realistic.

Tools Alone Don’t Achieve Round-the-Clock Security

It’s true: modern security platforms collect and process vast amounts of data, but tools don’t interpret alerts or make judgment calls.

Simply put, without analysts actively reviewing and investigating signals, threats can go unnoticed for hours – even days. Many teams rely on automated alerts outside business hours, assuming they’ll catch serious issues, of course. Unfortunately, attackers can blend into normal activity, triggering signals that require human context to evaluate properly.

Alert Fatigue and Operational Burnout

Even when teams attempt extended coverage, alert fatigue quickly becomes a limiting factor. What does this mean, exactly? From high alert volumes to false positives and repetitive investigations, these issues erode analysts’ focus over time.

This then manifests. Burnout snowballs into mistakes, slower response times, and higher turnover, which further weaken coverage. The result is a cycle where teams technically monitor alerts around the clock, but effectiveness drops sharply during off-hours.

Why Teams Turn to Managed Detection and Response

To address this issue, organizations often explore managed detection and response services to support continuous monitoring. In addition to investigating alerts and validating threats, MDR providers can escalate incidents when action is required.

In this context, vendors such as Red Canary are evaluated alongside internal capabilities to extend coverage without requiring full in-house staffing. MDR isn’t a replacement for internal security ownership. That’s important to clarify. However, it can ensure suspicious activity doesn’t go uninvestigated simply because it occurs at, say, 2am.

The Visibility Challenge Across Modern Environment

Today’s environments span everything from SaaS platforms to endpoints. Trying to monitor all these domains on a consistent basis demands wide visibility and correlation.

The problem is that many teams lack unified views across these systems. That’s especially the case with outside core working hours. Without centralized monitoring and context, alerts can be mis-prioritized or simply ignored entirely.

This fragmentation makes true 24/7 monitoring even more difficult.

Conclusion

The reality is that most teams aren’t failing to provide 24/7 monitoring due to a lack of effort. They’re constrained by resource constraints, complexity, and sustainability considerations. When a company acknowledges these limitations, it can build an operational model that balances internal expertise with external support where appropriate. 

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