24/7 Incident Response Capability

This question asks if someone at your company can respond to security problems at any time - nights, weekends, holidays, whenever. Security incidents don't follow business hours; hackers often attack at 2 AM on Christmas morning when they think nobody's watching. Your customers need to know that if their data is being stolen or your service is under attack at 3 AM on a Sunday, someone will notice and take action immediately, not wait until Monday morning when it might be too late.

The ability to respond to incidents 24/7 can mean the difference between a minor issue and a catastrophic breach. Every hour of delayed response increases data exposure, customer impact, and recovery costs exponentially. Enterprise customers often operate globally and need assurance that their vendor won't leave them vulnerable during off-hours. Lacking 24/7 coverage is often a deal-breaker for enterprise contracts, as it suggests operational immaturity and increases the customer's risk exposure significantly.

Many companies claim 24/7 coverage but only have on-call developers without proper incident response training or clear escalation procedures. Another mistake is relying solely on automated monitoring without human verification and response capabilities. Companies also often fail to test their after-hours response procedures, discovering gaps only during real incidents when it's too late.