Security Operations Center (SOC) monitoring provides 24/7 threat detection for small businesses. Learn the costs, benefits, and ROI of SOC services.
You've heard the pitch: 24/7 Security Operations Center monitoring will protect your business from cyberattacks. But is around-the-clock security monitoring really necessary for small businesses? Can you afford it? This guide answers those questions honestly. What is 24/7 SOC Monitoring? A Security Operations Center (SOC) is a team of cybersecurity analysts who continuously monitor your IT environment for threats, investigate suspicious activity, and respond to security incidents in real-time. Think of a SOC as a security guard watching dozens of security camera feeds simultaneously, but for your digital infrastructure. Someone is always watching your systems, ready to respond the moment something looks wrong. What a SOC Actually Does Continuous Monitoring A SOC keeps a constant watch over every layer of your digital environment. Analysts monitor all endpoints -- laptops, servers, and mobile devices -- while simultaneously tracking network traffic for suspicious connections. Inbound email is analyzed for phishing attempts and malicious attachments, and activity across cloud applications like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace is tracked in real time. On top of all that, security logs from firewalls, antivirus software, and other tools are continuously reviewed and correlated so that nothing slips through the cracks. Threat Detection Detection goes far beyond simple signature matching. Modern SOCs leverage AI and machine learning to identify unusual behavior patterns that traditional tools would miss, and they correlate events across multiple systems to spot coordinated attacks. Analysts apply up-to-date threat intelligence -- knowledge of the latest attack techniques, indicators of compromise, and adversary playbooks -- to stay ahead of evolving threats. They also engage in proactive threat hunting, actively searching for hidden threats that may already be lurking inside your environment before any alert is triggered. Incident Investigation When an alert fires, a human security analyst steps in to investigate. They determine whether the activity