Understaffed teams face the same large-scale threats that once targeted only major enterprises. Those organizations have the experts to defend against them. Smaller businesses often don’t. That’s why defenders must address new cyber risks with skilled analysts who investigate and act as threats evolve.
Continuous monitoring only works if an investigation survives the shift change. Port53’s analysts maintain case notes and timelines across handoffs, so whoever picks up an incident early in the morning inherits what the overnight analyst saw, ruled out, and already contained. Connection’s architects set that foundation during onboarding, mapping which data sources feed the SOC so investigations start with the right context.
Connection and Port53’s joint service delivers 24×7 monitoring, escalation, and human-led support, enabling you to efficiently close security gaps and stand up to emerging threats.
Why Continuous Coverage Strains Resource-limited Analysts
Around-the-clock coverage means staffing three shifts a day, every day of the year, and absorbing vacations, sick time, and turnover on top of that. That roster is hard to fill, with 86% of organizations identifying a shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals as a major challenge.
Delay brings its own risk. 88% of businesses have experienced at least one significant security incident caused by a skills shortage, and 72% say reducing security staff increases the likelihood of breaches. For mid-market teams, around-the-clock expertise is the hardest resource to build internally.
How Connection and Port53 Deliver 24×7 Security
Connection’s Managed Cisco XDR includes a SOC staffed around the clock. It monitors the environment continuously, investigates what the tools surface, and acts under playbooks approved in advance. Connection delivers that capability through Port53, its managed security partner.
Port53’s analysts handle monitoring, detection, triage, investigation, and response, while Connection designs how the service fits each environment, tuning endpoint, firewall, and identity controls before monitoring begins. Organizations can hand over the full detection and response lifecycle or keep internal staff in the loop and use the SOC for monitoring, triage, and analyst validation. Connection remains the single point of contact throughout.
How the Service Processes Incidents
The joint Managed Cisco XDR service runs around the clock, operated by Port53 and built to fit your environment by Connection’s security team. Telemetry from endpoints, identity, email, network, and cloud flows into Cisco XDR, where analytics correlate related signals into a single declared incident in under ten minutes.
Port53 analysts then validate severity and business impact. Depending on the tier, they either contain the threat under playbooks your team approved in advance or escalate with the full investigation attached.
The people behind them work in a SOC that has run 24×7 MDR-class operations for eight years and holds a current SOC 2 Type 2 certification. Connection’s architects link data sources and integrations up front to ensure telemetry reflects the environment you actually run.
How Managed Response Equips Your People for Resilience
49% of analysts named alert fatigue their biggest challenge, and 75% said it leaves no time for strategic work such as threat hunting. That’s why the first question most security leaders should ask about a managed service is: Who acts, on what authority, and how quickly? Connection and Port53 answer it before go-live. Incidents are linked to severity tiers defined during onboarding, and each tier carries a documented response path.
- Low severity—A Port53 analyst investigates and closes low-severity events without interrupting your staff. A blocked phishing attempt or a failed login burst that never authenticated appears in your reporting for review.
- Medium severity—These incidents run under pre-approved playbooks. When Port53’s analysts confirm a compromised account, the authorized actions are executed immediately. Typical examples include session revocation, credential resets, and isolation of non-critical endpoints. Your team receives the notification with the investigation attached.
- High severity—Critical incidents involving production systems or privileged accounts are escalated to your designated contacts for decision-making. The escalation includes the correlated Cisco XDR timeline, the affected assets, the actions already taken, and a recommended next step. Your team makes the call, and Port53 carries it out.
Expert-led XDR for Your Environment
Operated around the clock by Port53 and configured for your environment by Connection, this partnership delivers:
- Unified telemetry across endpoint, identity, email, network, and cloud
- Analyst validation of severity and business impact
- Containment runs under your pre-approved playbooks
- Escalations with the full investigation attached
- Defined SLAs on response
- Current SOC 2 Type 2 certification
Watch our on-demand webinar to learn more about The Connection + Port53 + Cisco Advantage.
How Connection Empowers Your Team
Your peers increasingly rely on external providers for continuously monitored security functions, so internal teams can refocus on value-generating work. And rightly so. Connection works with your team, not around it, providing enterprise-grade security outcomes without forcing you to surrender control or build an in-house SOC.
- Prevention-first Mindset—Connection’s onboarding begins with a deep dive security health check, tuning endpoint, firewall, and identity controls to dramatically reduce background noise.
- Human-led Investigation—Every critical alert is reviewed by a certified security analyst to confirm the threat is real before escalation or response.
- Active Containment and Response—When a threat is confirmed, Connection executes pre-approved response playbooks to stop incidents before they become breaches.
As a Cisco Gold Partner working closely with Port53, Connection helps you achieve cybersecurity excellence. Cisco Managed XDR is built to reduce noise, accelerate response, and close security gaps without adding operational burden to your team.
Ready to Strengthen Your Security Operations?
Your security team shouldn’t have to choose between 24×7 protection and maintaining control. Connection can help you determine where Managed Cisco XDR fits within your existing environment and how it can reduce alert noise, strengthen response, and support your team around the clock. Let’s talk about your security strategy and explore what’s possible.
