How to Choose a Managed Active Threat Response Service: A Decision-Maker's Guide

1. Where Does the Intelligence Come From?

Ask for a breakdown of source types: global commercial feeds, open sources, CERT bodies, and above all — local and sector-specific intelligence. A provider that sees campaigns at other customers in your market identifies targeted threats before the global feeds do. For an organization operating in Israel, direct access to national cyber directorate intelligence and the local security community is a substantive advantage, not a slide-deck line.

2. What Happens Between Indicator Receipt and Blocking?

This is the core question. A good answer describes a clear process: reliability validation, context enrichment, relevance-based prioritization — and human oversight for edge cases. Beware of both extreme answers: 'everything is manual' (too slow for campaigns that live for hours) and 'everything is automatic' (a recipe for blocking legitimate services). The right balance: end-to-end automation, with analysts at the decision points.

3. Which Systems Are Covered — and How Deeply?

Map your environment against the provider's capabilities: firewall (which vendors?), email protection (Microsoft 365? Google Workspace? a dedicated SEG?), EDR and antivirus, DNS Security, SIEM. Ask about integration depth too: is distribution a full API integration with indicator lifecycle management, or a list someone has to import manually? And what happens when you replace a system — is the new integration included?

4. Transparency and Documentation: What Will You Actually See?

A good service should not be a black box. Check what you receive on an ongoing basis:

• Full documentation: which indicators were distributed, to which systems, and when
• Alerts on significant blocks — especially communication attempts to C2 infrastructure
• Periodic reports with trends and recommendations, in language management understands
• A direct channel to the analyst team — not just a ticketing system

5. Availability, SLA and Organizational Fit

Attacks do not happen during business hours. Verify the service genuinely operates 24/7 — an active team, not on-paper on-call — and that there is a defined commitment for handling critical indicators. Check customization too: Can you define organizational exception lists? Different policies for different environments? Consideration for vendors and addresses your business depends on?

Finally, ask about onboarding: how quickly you reach full coverage, and what is required from your IT team along the way. A mature service — like PULSE by Persist Security — comes with an orderly process: system mapping, staged integration, a tuning period, and only then full enforcement.

The Bonus Question: What Happens When Something Is Blocked by Mistake?

False blocks will happen — the question is what happens next. A good answer includes a fast removal channel, a defined response time, and root-cause analysis that prevents recurrence. A provider claiming they never have false blocks is a warning sign in itself.