Executive summary
In live incidents, time to containment defines outcomes. Protocols rarely fail on detection alone. They fail because the path from alert to action is fragmented. Teams wake to noisy signals. No one owns the first decision. Multisigs are not prepared to authorize a pause quickly. Minutes pass while assets move.
Managed Detection and Response operationalizes this gap. MDR delivers decision criteria, preauthorization, pre-signed transactions, and 24/7 triage. It binds playbooks to alerts, spins up war rooms for the incident, and presents high signal context so the pause decision happens in time.
Why pausing decides outcomes
Once an exploit starts, onchain value leaves in minutes. Reversals are unlikely. If you can pause before funds move, you prevent the cascade. If you cannot, you move into damage control. The difference is rarely code quality. It is operational readiness.
Common blockers:
- No on call coverage to validate alerts outside working hours.
- No preapproved criteria for pausing and no documented owner for the decision.
- Multisigs without a trusted signer path or pre-signed transactions.
- War rooms that start by finding the right link, not by acting.
- Console and log views that bury the one signal that matters now.
MDR is designed to remove these blockers.
What a functioning pause pathway looks like
A reliable pause pathway has five elements that work together. MDR provides the operating system for each element.
Mapped criteria.
You define, in writing, the exact conditions that warrant a pause. Examples include critical invariant breaches, unauthorized role changes, abnormal minting or burning, or governance execution outside defined bounds. Criteria are specific, measurable, and preapproved by leadership.
How MDR helps: Playbooks encode these criteria and surface them at the moment of decision inside the incident.
Preauthorization.
Legal, governance, and operations agree in advance on who can authorize a pause, how that decision is documented, and which paths are allowed. This removes ambiguity when seconds matter.
How MDR helps: Escalation paths and decision owners are embedded in the playbook. The incident routes to the right people automatically.
Prepared multisig.
A trusted signer is added. Parent and child safes are linked. Pre-signed pause transactions exist for the relevant chains. If a pause is required, your system executes without drafting payloads under stress.
How MDR helps. Pauser configuration is tracked, verified, and visible. Pre-signed transactions are referenced directly from the playbook.
24/7 monitoring and triage.
Human analysts validate high severity signals at any hour. They follow playbooks that route only escalations that meet your criteria. Teams are woken up for clear decisions, not for every alert.
How MDR helps. Analysts review filtered logs, apply the criteria, and present a ready decision to the owner.
A war room that starts itself.
The incident creates the room. The right people join. Context and next steps are in view. Communication begins with action, not logistics.
How MDR helps. Incidents spin up a Meet link from the platform, bind the correct playbook, and show the transaction details that matter.
How the new features support this
Instant war rooms: Incidents can spin up a Google Meet, Slack Channel or microsoft teams group automatically from within the platform. The incident name is in line, the acknowledge control is visible, and everyone lands in the same room without hunting for links.
High signal logs: Responders filter and order logs in the platform so the active signal stands out from background noise. The team triages faster and escalates only what meets criteria.
Transaction context: The transaction details drawer surfaces the who, what, where, and when of the incoming event. Responders see function signatures, affected contracts, and linked addresses in one view.
Pauser configuration: Screens make it clear which chains, safes, signers, and pre-signed transactions are in place. You confirm that a pause path exists before an incident, not during one.
Resilient incident creation: If an external coordination tool is not configured yet, you can still create and manage incidents. Response is not blocked by tooling state.
What the first minute should look like
Minute zero to 15 seconds. Monitoring signals an invariant breach on a production contract. The platform opens an incident, assigns severity, and starts a war room. Analysts acknowledge the incident and pull the correct playbook.
Fifteen to forty five seconds. Twenty four seven triage reviews filtered logs and transaction context. The event matches a preapproved pause criterion. The decision owner is contacted in channel and by phone. The owner confirms the pause.
Forty five to sixty seconds. The platform submits the pre-signed pause through the configured multisig path. Contracts are paused. TVL stabilizes. Containment begins.
How to adopt this without disruption
Start with the playbook. Document pause criteria, role ownership, and escalation paths. Add a trusted signer and prepare pre-signed transactions for the relevant chains. Connect monitoring and alerting so MDR triage receives the same signal you do. Run a short tabletop that forces a pause decision and measures time to containment. Fix the slow steps. Repeat until you can pause in under one minute.
Who should lead this
Security leads who own incident response. Protocol engineers who manage multisigs and deployment. Governance and legal stakeholders who approve emergency powers and communication standards. Operations teams who maintain on call coverage.
What to measure
Mean time to acknowledge. Mean time to decision. Mean time to pause. False positive rate. Incidents where criteria were met but the pause path failed. Tabletop drills completed each quarter.
The risk of reacting slowly
Without a working pause pathway, you will rely on improvisation during an exploit. Decision ownership will be unclear. Signers will be asleep. The room will form late. Containment will lag movement of funds. The postmortem will ask why basic mechanics were not in place.
Next step
Talk to us about your pausing strategy. We will test your criteria, triage path, and pause mechanics.