Just when you thought they couldn’t be any more annoying or inconvenient, you remember cyberthreats don’t follow office hours.
Ransomware. Credential theft. Cloud-based attacks. Name the threat, and you’ll see they frequently occur overnight or during weekends. That’s when internal teams are least available. Yet for modern organisations, continuous security monitoring has become a mandatory requirement rather than a luxury.
Without 24/7 visibility, attackers gain valuable dwell time – and that increases both the financial and operational impact of breaches.
The necessity for round-the-clock coverage is clear. However, the true cost of delivering this coverage can be misunderstood. Many know it is a heavy outlay, yes, but they might not realise quite how expensive it can be without the right approach.
The Hidden Expenses Behind Always-On Security
Did you know many organisations assume the cost of 24/7 security operations is limited to hiring additional analysts? In reality, staffing is only one piece of a much larger jigsaw. Maintaining effective coverage requires significant investment across people, processes, and technology.
Common expenses include:
- Hiring, training, and retaining skilled security analysts.
- Shift coverage, including overtime and on-call compensation.
- Security licensing and ongoing maintenance.
- Continuous tuning to reduce false positives.
- Alert triage, investigation workflows, and documentation.
- Burnout-related turnover and knowledge loss.
These expenses compound over time. Small to mid-sized teams can quickly exceed initial projections.
The Operational Impact on Security Teams
It’s not just financial cost. 24/7 operations also place heavy strain on internal teams.
For instance, analysts can be forced to prioritise speed over depth. This can result in missed context and delayed responses. Alert fatigue also becomes a daily reality as teams sift through high volumes of low-quality signals.
Over time, this erodes morale and increases turnover.
These points are further exacerbated by increased hiring and onboarding costs. Even well-funded security programs struggle to achieve consistency when expertise is spread thin across shifts.
Where Managed Detection and Response Serves Enter the Equation
To address these challenges effectively, many organisations explore managed detection and response services as part of their security strategy.
Now, this isn’t about replacing internal teams. Instead, these services can augment existing capabilities by supplying continuous monitoring, threat investigation, and guided response. This approach allows a company to sustain 24/7 coverage without fully absorbing the staffing and operational burden.
Importantly, MDR is typically evaluated alongside other options, such as building internal SOC capabilities and outsourcing to traditional MSSPs.
The End Goal: Making Smarter Security Investment Decisions
When you factor in the true cost of 24/7 security operations, leaders are better positioned to make more informed decisions.
The goal is not simply to reduce spending, but to allocate resources where they have the greatest impact. Is the aim to invest in internal capabilities? Save with external support? Perhaps to put together a hybrid model? Either way, organisation need to assess how effectively their security operations detect and respond to real threats.
It’s not only about always being “on”. Far from it. In fact, sustainable security is all about being consistently effective.
