Alert Time is Obsolete

Response Time is the new benchmark for security performance

There… I said the quiet part out loud. Something we’ve all thought about but never dared to speak about.

Consider this: In the golden age of newspaper publishing, being first with the news was everything. Competitive news agencies measured their success by how fast they could get a story from the writer’s desk to the streets. Extras hit the stands between the morning journal and the evening bulletin—all in a relentless race against time.

The Shift

Then the internet changed everything. News now moves at the speed of thought. The story doesn’t even need to be fully written before it’s published. Edits and corrections happen in real time. WordPress outpaces the printing press every single time. And we, the consumers of the Information Age, became skeptical of rapid-fire reporting, cynical opinion pieces, weary of 30-second news reels, and hungry for substance, detail, and authenticity.

Newspaper publishers adapted. Today, they deliver in-depth reporting—multi-part series on the healthcare crisis, entire editions dedicated to electoral voting insights, digital platforms where readers can comment and verify sources. As consumers, we trust but verify – a philosophy that now defines the evolution of security monitoring for MDR.

What About Industry Standards?

At CyberMaxx, we recognize that the age of Alert and Notify is over. Measuring Alert Time for a superficial notification of a security event is obsolete. We respect our clients—who have come to see that the industry-standard 15-minute Alert Time was nothing more than a gamified performance metric.

Some security providers start the clock at Alert Ingest and stop it at notification. Others start timing only when an analyst picks up the alert. Some only measure the time after the investigation is complete. And the boldest of them? They average automated and manual handling times to claim they can handle an alert in mere seconds.

Really?

Here’s the truth: We have too much respect for our clients to play into a meaningless metric that has lost all credibility.

The Modern MDR Standard

At CyberMaxx, Response Time is the modern MDR standard. We publish results within a 60-minute window for High Severity Alerts—starting from Alert Genesis, through deep Analysis, all the way to Risk Determination, Notification, and Escalation. We operate with integrity, prioritizing the alerts that truly matter, conducting in-depth investigations, and delivering prescriptive guidance that our clients can rely on.

For the most serious alerts, we notify our CyberMaxx Threat Response team at the same time as our clients, ensuring rapid and thorough assessment with full compromise evaluation.

We refuse to align with ticket-factory security providers, racing to the bottom with empty promises of rapid alerts while burdening their clients with superficial investigations. Their outdated approach leaves businesses vulnerable to the complex threats of modern adversaries.

CyberMaxx prioritizes Response Time, publishing our results on the CyberSight portal for complete transparency—because our clients should always trust but verify. Our platform is accessible by desktop and mobile, with shift leaders on duty 24/7/365 to provide insights into proactive actions taken during every response cycle.

We are here to protect our clients, holding ourselves to the highest standards of Response Time, reinforcing the Big ‘R’ of MDR.

Focus On Metrics That Matter

Beware of those who equate vanity metrics like Alert and Notify with actual protection. That’s an illusion from a bygone era.

MSSP Alert Time is obsolete. MDR Response Time is the new benchmark for security performance—where CyberMaxx sets the standard