Your practice may close at 5:00. Cybersecurity threats do not.
Employees go home, the front desk stops answering phones and the last patient leaves the building, but your technology keeps running. Workstations remain connected, cloud accounts still exist, servers continue operating, security logs keep recording activity and automated attacks continue looking for opportunities.
That is why you may hear your IT or cybersecurity provider talk about 24/7 cybersecurity monitoring.
It sounds reassuring, but it can also be vague. What is actually being monitored? Is software doing the work, or is a person looking at it? What happens if something suspicious is detected at 2:00 in the morning? And if your practice already has antivirus protection, why would you need anything more?
Those are reasonable questions.
The basic idea behind 24/7 monitoring is that security systems continue collecting and analyzing information when your practice is closed, and there is a process for determining what to do with important alerts. That last part is critical.
Cybersecurity Activity Does Not Follow Your Schedule
Many cybersecurity threats are automated. Stolen credentials can be tested at any hour. Malicious software does not wait for Monday morning. An unusual login attempt can happen while everyone in your practice is asleep.
Imagine a security tool identifies concerning activity at 11:30 on a Friday night. If the alert simply sits in a dashboard until someone checks it Monday morning, your practice technically had a monitoring system running the entire weekend.
But did it have meaningful 24/7 security monitoring?
That is where the distinction becomes important.
The purpose is not simply to collect more information. The value comes from identifying which activity deserves attention and having a process for deciding what happens next.
Monitoring Is Different From Antivirus
Antivirus and endpoint protection are important security layers, but broader cybersecurity monitoring can look at information from several parts of the environment.
Depending on the services your practice uses, monitoring might include computers and servers, endpoint security tools, Microsoft 365 or other cloud services, user logins, firewalls, network activity and security logs.
The goal is not to treat every piece of activity as suspicious. It is to identify patterns or events that may deserve investigation.
This becomes important because modern security systems can generate a tremendous number of alerts. Not every alert means an attacker is inside your network.
For example, a user signing in from an unusual location could mean an account was compromised. It could also mean the doctor is attending a conference in another state. A program running an unfamiliar process could be malicious, or it could be part of a legitimate software update.
Security tools are good at identifying signals. Someone still needs to determine what those signals mean.
What Is a SOC?
Another term you may hear when talking about cybersecurity monitoring is SOC, which stands for Security Operations Center.
A SOC combines security technology with people and processes that help review and respond to cybersecurity events. For most independent eye care practices, this does not mean having cybersecurity analysts sitting in a special room inside the practice.
These capabilities are commonly provided through an outside security service.
Information from different security systems can be analyzed centrally. If something looks suspicious, it may be reviewed to determine whether it needs further investigation or action.
Depending on the service and the permissions that have been established, a response might involve escalating an alert, investigating an account, isolating a device or contacting the practice's IT team.
Not every monitoring provider operates the same way, though. Some services may primarily generate notifications, while others have people actively reviewing alerts and taking certain approved actions.
That is why practice leadership should understand what "24/7 monitoring" actually means in their particular environment. The source article makes this same distinction between tools that collect security events and the people or processes responsible for interpreting and responding to them.
What Happens When Something Is Detected?
The appropriate response depends on what the monitoring system finds.
A low-risk event might simply be reviewed and documented. Something unusual may require additional investigation. A serious event could require immediate action.
Suppose monitoring identifies behavior on a workstation that appears consistent with ransomware. Depending on the technology and response arrangements in place, isolating the workstation from the network may help reduce the risk of the activity spreading.
Or imagine an employee account suddenly begins showing suspicious login behavior. Responding might involve ending active sessions, securing the account, resetting credentials and reviewing whether anything else was accessed.
This is where the response plan becomes just as important as the monitoring technology.
A monitoring system that detects something serious but has no clear escalation process can leave a practice with a lot of security information and very little direction. Someone should understand who investigates, who is contacted and what actions can be taken.
What Should Practice Owners Ask About Monitoring?
Practice owners and administrators do not need to understand every technical platform involved in cybersecurity monitoring. They should be able to get straightforward answers about how the service works.
Start with what is actually being monitored. Are only workstations covered, or does monitoring include servers, Microsoft 365, firewalls, security logs or other parts of the environment?
Then ask who receives and reviews the alerts. Are they simply collected in a system? Are they sent to the IT company? Is a security team reviewing them around the clock?
It is also important to ask what happens when something serious is found. Who investigates? Can someone isolate a compromised workstation? Who can secure an account? At what point is someone from the practice contacted?
There is a significant difference between collecting security information 24/7 and actually having important alerts reviewed and responded to 24/7.
Monitoring Should Connect With Everyday IT Support
Cybersecurity and everyday IT should not operate as completely separate worlds.
If a serious security issue occurs, the people investigating the security event may also need information about the practice's network, devices, employees and software. At the same time, the IT team may need information from the security monitoring service to understand what happened and determine what needs to be done next.
Coordination matters.
This is particularly important in an eye care environment where vendors, specialized devices and practice software may all interact with the network. Responding to an incident often requires understanding how the entire environment fits together rather than looking at one security alert in isolation.
24/7 Monitoring Does Not Replace the Basics
It is also important not to think of cybersecurity monitoring as a substitute for basic security practices.
Monitoring cannot make a weak password safe. It does not eliminate the need for MFA, patching, backups or good access management. It does not automatically remove an account when an employee leaves, and it cannot stop every employee from clicking a convincing phishing message.
Monitoring is another layer.
A strong cybersecurity program usually includes multiple protections working together: secure configurations, employee awareness, email protection, endpoint security, backups, access controls, patching, monitoring and an incident response process.
If one layer misses something, another may help identify it.
Ask More Than "Do We Have 24/7 Monitoring?"
Simply hearing "yes" when you ask whether your practice has 24/7 monitoring does not tell you very much.
A more useful conversation is about what is being monitored, who reviews the alerts and what actually happens when something important is detected.
Those answers tell you whether your monitoring is mostly a dashboard collecting information or whether there is a meaningful response process behind it.
Your practice does not need someone staring at a screen every second of every day. It does need security systems that continue working when the office closes and a clear plan for turning the right alerts into action.
Because if something suspicious happens at 11:30 Friday night, Monday morning can be a long time to wait.