Paying for Coverage You Don't Need: The Continuous Hunting Myth

The cybersecurity industry has led you to believe that continuous monitoring is the same as constant hunting. That's not true.

You may have heard that security operations need to run all day, every day, and that any gaps could put your business at risk. For alert-based monitoring, this is accurate. Your MSSP should monitor threats 24/7, as attacks can occur at any time.

But here's something you might not know: Threat hunting does not have to be nonstop to work well.

The 24/7 Myth

Let's clarify what 24/7 Security Operations Center coverage actually involves.

When your MSSP monitors your systems around the clock, they are looking for alerts. For example, if a firewall blocks suspicious traffic, it creates an alert. If an endpoint notices strange behavior, that's another alert. If someone logs in from an unusual place, you get an alert. Continuous monitoring is key to quick responses.

Hunting, however, is different. It starts with a theory and involves carefully looking through past data to find supporting evidence. This work needs focus and time to follow leads. It's not possible to do this well while also handling hundreds of alerts each shift.

Why Continuous Hunting Doesn't Work

Here's the hard truth about adding threat hunting to nonstop SOC operations:

• Alert fatigue kills investigative thinking. When analysts spend 70% of their time on alert triage, they lack mental bandwidth for hypothesis-driven investigation. You're asking them to be both firefighters and detectives at the same time.
• Hunting needs a look back at history. The best hunts review logs from weeks or months ago to find threats that didn't trigger alerts. Real-time monitoring can't do this because it only looks at current activity.
• The goals are not the same. Your MSSP is measured on how quickly they respond to alerts and close tickets. Hunting, on the other hand, is about finding threats that didn't trigger alerts and improving your systems. These are separate aims.

What You Actually Need

Consider how other types of investigations work. Internal auditors don't audit continuously; they conduct focused reviews at set intervals. Financial audits also occur on a schedule, such as quarterly or annually. These tasks need planning, careful analysis, and focus. The same idea applies to threat hunting.

Doing focused hunting sessions from time to time works better than constantly checking in the background. These focused hunts give you time to follow leads, dig into past data, and produce precise results. Hunting is about identifying key issues and strengthening your defenses.

Your MSSP's 24/7 SOC should keep monitoring alerts and responding quickly. Threat hunting works best when it's done as focused sessions that add to your ongoing monitoring.

The Math That Changes Everything

Let's look at two different approaches to understand the difference:

Option A: Continuous Hunting

• SOC analysts with 10-20% time allocated to hunting
• Investigations get interrupted whenever new alerts come in
• This approach costs over $200,000 a year for hunting that is often broken up and less effective

Option B: Focused Hunting Engagements

• Dedicated hunters spend all their time focused on investigations
• They can hunt based on clear ideas without interruptions, which leads to real answers
• These quarterly sessions cost less than a tenth as much as continuous monitoring

Which approach is better at finding threats your monitoring missed? Specialized hunters who aren't distracted by constant alerts can deliver real value.

Real-World Example

Your MSSP or SOC monitors your company for three months, processing 50,000 alerts and investigating 2,000 incidents. That's excellent reactive work. During those months, how much time did anyone spend investigating whether you're already compromised?

Now picture an independent hunting team working for two weeks. They don't deal with alerts. Instead, they look into odd login patterns from six months back, movement across systems using standard tools, and data transfers that seemed fine. They discover signs of compromised credentials dating back 90 days that didn't trigger any alerts because the attacker used legitimate tools.

Your 24/7 MSSP coverage didn't fail. It performed as designed in monitoring for known threats that trigger alerts. Unfortunately, this threat never triggered an alert, and that's the gap offset hunting fills.

The Hybrid Model That Actually Works

For effective security operations, it can be a wise investment to combine both approaches:

• Your MSSP's 24/7 SOC: They provide continuous monitoring, alert triage, incident response, and rapid threat containment. Your reactive defense is essential and ongoing.
• Offset Threat Hunting: Conduct periodic focused engagements, quarterly or as needed, hunting what your monitoring isn't seeing. Your proactive validation is essential, but it should not be continuous.
• The Feedback Loop: What you learn from hunting can improve your MSSP's detection rules. Patterns from SOC alerts can guide future hunts. Each one makes the other stronger.

This approach doesn't replace your current setup. It adds focused investigation to your ongoing monitoring.

What Comes Next

Understanding that you don't need continuous hunting should be liberating, both operationally and financially.

This should also make you think: How do these two models fit together for your team? How does alert-based monitoring work with offset hunting? What does the feedback loop look like? And how can you set up these engagements to maximize value?

Next, we'll take a closer look at the hybrid model and show how independent hunting services can work with your current MSSP to build stronger defenses.

About the Series: This is Part 3 of a six-part series that examines the gap between how security operations are delivered and how modern threats actually operate. We're building the case for a hybrid approach that combines continuous monitoring with focused hunting.

Focused hunting services offer offset threat hunting that works alongside your MSSP, not against it. Our work is targeted, our findings are helpful, and our methods are clear. We don't replace your SOC; we help it work better. Learn more at focusedhunts.com

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