Cyberattacks do not operate on business hours, and neither should your security monitoring. The majority of ransomware deployments occur between 8 PM and 6 AM, specifically targeting the hours when IT staff are offline and response times are slowest. For North Carolina businesses without round-the-clock monitoring, this means that an attacker who gains access to your network at midnight could have eight or more uninterrupted hours to exfiltrate data, disable backups, and deploy ransomware before anyone notices. A 24/7 Security Operations Center eliminates that window of vulnerability.
What a SOC Actually Does
A Security Operations Center is a team of cybersecurity analysts supported by advanced detection technology who continuously monitor your network, endpoints, cloud services, and applications for signs of malicious activity. When a potential threat is detected, SOC analysts investigate the alert, determine whether it represents a genuine incident, and take immediate action to contain and remediate the threat. This is fundamentally different from simply installing security software and hoping it catches everything. Software generates alerts. Humans investigate, contextualize, and respond. The combination of technology and human expertise is what makes SOC monitoring effective against sophisticated, targeted attacks that automated tools alone would miss.
The Cost of Not Monitoring
The average cost of a data breach for a small business in the United States has climbed steadily and now exceeds $150,000 when accounting for remediation, legal fees, notification costs, and lost business. For many small companies, a breach of that magnitude is an existential threat. Beyond the direct financial impact, there is the operational disruption. The average time to identify and contain a breach without continuous monitoring is over 200 days. That means attackers could be inside your network for months, slowly escalating their access and extracting data, before anyone is aware. With 24/7 SOC monitoring, the median detection time drops to minutes, and containment typically occurs within hours, reducing both the damage and the cost by an order of magnitude.
Why Outsourced SOC Makes Sense for SMBs
Building an in-house SOC requires hiring at minimum six to eight full-time security analysts to cover three shifts, seven days a week, plus a manager, the technology platform, and ongoing training. The fully loaded annual cost easily exceeds $1 million. For a small or mid-sized business, that is simply not feasible. An outsourced SOC, provided by a managed security partner, delivers the same 24/7 coverage at a fraction of the cost by distributing the expense across many clients. You get access to senior analysts, enterprise-grade SIEM and SOAR platforms, and threat intelligence feeds that would be cost-prohibitive to acquire independently. The economics are compelling: enterprise-level security at a price point that fits a small business budget.
What to Look for in a SOC Provider
Not all SOC providers are created equal. When evaluating options, look for a provider that offers true 24/7/365 monitoring by human analysts, not just automated alerting. Ask about their mean time to detect and mean time to respond, and get those commitments in writing. Understand how they communicate with your internal team during an incident, including escalation paths, notification methods, and reporting cadence. The best providers function as an extension of your team, learning your environment and tailoring their monitoring to your specific threat profile and business context. PCG's SOC services are designed specifically for North Carolina businesses, combining always-on monitoring with local, responsive support when you need hands-on assistance.