24/7 SOC Monitoring, Managed SIEM, and Incident Response for Triangle Businesses
Petronella Technology Group's MSSP practice delivers turnkey cybersecurity operations — continuous SOC monitoring, SIEM log correlation, endpoint detection and response, proactive threat hunting, vulnerability management, and compliance-mapped reporting — managed by U.S.-based security analysts and a licensed digital forensic examiner with over 25 years of experience. Enterprise-grade defense without the seven-figure payroll.
★★★★★ 4.7/5 on Google
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BBB Accredited Since 2003
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2,500+ Businesses Protected
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Founded 2002
24/7 SOC • Managed SIEM • Threat Detection • Incident Response • Vulnerability Management • Compliance Reporting
What Is a Managed Security Service Provider?
A Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) is a specialized cybersecurity firm that assumes responsibility for an organization's security operations on a continuous, outsourced basis. Rather than staffing, training, and equipping an internal Security Operations Center (SOC) — which requires six to eight full-time analysts at $90,000 to $150,000 per head in the Raleigh-Durham market alone — businesses delegate monitoring, detection, analysis, and incident response to a dedicated third-party team that operates around the clock.
The core deliverables of a mature MSSP include real-time log ingestion and correlation through a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platform, endpoint detection and response (EDR) across servers and workstations, network traffic analysis, vulnerability scanning and remediation prioritization, threat intelligence integration, dark web credential monitoring, and automated compliance evidence generation mapped to the frameworks your auditors require.
For organizations across Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, Research Triangle Park, and throughout North Carolina, the MSSP model solves three problems simultaneously: it closes the cybersecurity talent gap that leaves over 700,000 U.S. security positions unfilled, it replaces fragmented point-solution deployments with unified visibility across every attack surface, and it converts compliance from a periodic scramble into a continuous, automatic process. The economics are straightforward: a fully burdened internal SOC exceeds $1 million annually before the first alert is triaged, while an MSSP spreads that expertise across its client base, delivering the same or superior coverage at a fraction of the cost.
PTG has provided managed security services from our Raleigh headquarters since 2002. Founded by Craig Petronella — a Licensed Digital Forensic Examiner, CMMC Certified Registered Practitioner, and MIT-certified cybersecurity professional — PTG combines two decades of operational threat data with proprietary AI-augmented analysis to protect organizations ranging from 10-endpoint professional firms to multi-thousand-seat enterprises across regulated industries.
Managed Security vs. Managed IT: A Clear Comparison
Many organizations assume their Managed Service Provider (MSP) handles security. In most cases, an MSP manages IT infrastructure — patching, helpdesk, backups — while an MSSP is purpose-built for threat detection, incident response, and regulatory compliance. Understanding the difference is critical for closing security gaps.
| Capability | Traditional MSP | MSSP (PTG) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Focus | IT uptime, patching, helpdesk, backups | Threat detection, incident response, security operations |
| SOC Coverage | Business hours only (if any) | 24/7/365 staffed Security Operations Center |
| SIEM / Log Correlation | Rarely deployed; alerts uncorrelated | Full SIEM with machine-learning correlation, behavioral baselines, and threat-intel enrichment |
| Endpoint Detection & Response | Basic antivirus, often signature-based | EDR/XDR with behavioral analysis, ransomware rollback, automated containment |
| Threat Hunting | Not offered | Proactive weekly threat-hunt sprints using MITRE ATT&CK framework |
| Incident Response | Ticket-based, next-business-day | Under 15-minute critical escalation with pre-approved containment runbooks |
| Digital Forensics | Outsourced to third party | In-house licensed digital forensics lab with court-ready evidence handling |
| Vulnerability Management | Periodic scans, low remediation rate | Continuous scanning, risk-ranked remediation, verified patching |
| Compliance Reporting | Basic documentation, manual assembly | Auto-mapped evidence packets for CMMC, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, NIST, ISO 27001 |
| Dark Web Monitoring | Not included | Continuous credential leak detection, impostor domain alerts, underground forum scanning |
| Security Awareness Training | Occasional, checkbox approach | Continuous phishing simulations, micro-learning modules, measured culture improvement |
Many organizations need both an MSP and an MSSP — or a single provider that delivers both. PTG offers integrated managed IT and managed security services, eliminating the coordination gaps that attackers exploit between separate providers.
Six Pillars of PTG's Managed Security Operations
Every engagement covers these six integrated service areas, eliminating the blind spots that fragmented security creates.
24/7 SOC Monitoring
PTG's Security Operations Center operates continuously, staffed by U.S.-based analysts who investigate every alert — not just the ones that score above an arbitrary threshold. Our hybrid SIEM ingests log data from firewalls, servers, endpoints, cloud platforms, SaaS applications, and network infrastructure, correlating millions of events daily into actionable intelligence. Behavioral baselines built from your organization's normal traffic patterns allow our analysts to spot deviations that signature-based tools miss. Critical alerts are escalated within 15 minutes with pre-approved containment actions executed per your runbooks, ensuring threats are neutralized before they spread. The SOC runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including holidays and weekends, with no coverage gaps during shift changes.
Managed SIEM
Security Information and Event Management is the nervous system of any MSSP practice. PTG deploys, tunes, and continuously manages your SIEM platform — handling log-source onboarding, parser development, correlation rule creation, and false-positive suppression so your security telemetry produces actionable alerts rather than noise. We rationalize log sources during onboarding to ensure every critical data stream is captured: Active Directory authentication events, VPN logins, email gateway logs, DNS queries, cloud API calls, firewall sessions, and endpoint process telemetry. Each log source maps to specific compliance control families, turning your SIEM into a dual-purpose tool for both threat detection and audit evidence generation. PTG handles all SIEM infrastructure, licensing, storage, and maintenance.
Threat Detection & Hunting
Reactive alerting catches known attacks. Proactive threat hunting finds the unknown ones. PTG conducts weekly threat-hunt sprints across your environment, using the MITRE ATT&CK framework to systematically search for indicators of compromise, living-off-the-land techniques, lateral movement patterns, and advanced persistent threat activity that automated detection engines miss. Our analysts pivot through threat-intelligence feeds, analyze dark web chatter targeting your industry, investigate anomalous PowerShell execution chains, and hunt for credential harvesting activity. Dark web monitoring continuously scans underground forums, paste sites, and credential marketplaces for your organization's domains, email addresses, and leaked passwords, alerting you before stolen credentials are weaponized.
Incident Response
When a confirmed threat is identified, response speed determines the difference between a contained event and a catastrophic breach. PTG's incident response operates on pre-approved playbooks developed during onboarding that authorize specific containment actions — endpoint isolation, account lockout, firewall rule injection, DNS sinkholing — without waiting for management approval at 2 a.m. Our Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) team, led by a Licensed Digital Forensic Examiner with over 25 years of experience, preserves volatile evidence from the moment of detection, maintains court-admissible chain-of-custody documentation, and delivers root-cause analysis reports that satisfy legal counsel, cyber-insurance carriers, and regulatory investigators. This integrated forensic capability saves clients significant cost compared to organizations that engage a separate forensics firm after an incident.
Vulnerability Management
Continuous vulnerability scanning identifies weaknesses across your internal network, external perimeter, web applications, and cloud infrastructure. But scanning alone is insufficient — most organizations drown in thousands of findings without a strategy for prioritizing remediation. PTG's vulnerability management program goes beyond scanning: we risk-rank every finding based on exploitability, asset criticality, exposure context, and active threat intelligence, then deliver prioritized remediation tickets with specific technical guidance. Our team verifies that patches and mitigations are successfully applied, tracks remediation metrics over time, and reports vulnerability posture trends to your leadership. Scan-to-remediation-to-verification cycles run continuously, not annually.
Compliance Reporting
During MSSP onboarding, PTG maps every log source and security control to the compliance frameworks your organization must satisfy. Every alert, investigation, and response action automatically tags with the compliance artifact it supports, generating framework-specific evidence packets as a natural byproduct of daily operations. Auditors receive structured documentation — not vague spreadsheets. PTG produces weekly executive dashboards, monthly control-effectiveness reports, quarterly risk assessments, and annual audit packets mapped to CMMC 2.0, NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53 Rev 5, HIPAA, PCI DSS v4.0, SOC 2, and ISO 27001:2022 control identifiers. Compliance becomes a continuous process rather than an annual scramble.
Vendor-Agnostic Platform, Best-of-Breed Integration
PTG maximizes your existing investments before recommending replacements. Our MSSP platform integrates with the tools you already own, ingesting telemetry through standard protocols, APIs, and agent-based collectors.
Why Choose Petronella Technology Group as Your MSSP
Licensed Digital Forensics Lab
PTG operates as a licensed digital forensics lab, not just a monitoring service. Our founder, Craig Petronella, is a Licensed Digital Forensic Examiner with over 25 years of experience who actively participates in forensic investigations. When an incident requires evidence preservation, malware reverse-engineering, or root-cause analysis, the same team that monitors your environment handles the investigation with court-admissible methodology. No third-party handoffs. No evidence chain-of-custody gaps. No delays while an external firm learns your infrastructure.
AI-Augmented Security Operations
PTG's proprietary AI agents amplify analyst effectiveness. Eve processes millions of security events daily in the SOC, building behavioral baselines and surfacing high-confidence alerts for human investigation. ComplyBot automates compliance evidence mapping, generating framework-specific documentation from real-time security data. These AI systems deliver the throughput of a much larger team while maintaining the accuracy and contextual judgment that only human-supervised artificial intelligence provides. Automation handles volume; analysts handle decisions.
Raleigh Headquarters, U.S.-Based Team
PTG's headquarters at [[address]] provides local, on-shore expertise from a team that has protected Triangle-area organizations since 2002. When you need on-site incident response, face-to-face strategy sessions, or a partner who understands North Carolina's regulatory environment, PTG is in Raleigh — not offshore. Our analysts carry appropriate clearances, and your security telemetry never leaves U.S. jurisdiction. BBB accredited since 2003 with over 2,500 businesses served, PTG has the longest track record of any cybersecurity-focused MSSP in the Research Triangle.
Full-Managed or Co-Managed Flexibility
PTG offers transparent pricing tiers — Core, Pro, and Enterprise — billed per protected asset per month with no surprise overage charges for alert triage or incident response. Organizations with existing security staff can choose co-managed SOC arrangements that augment internal teams with Tier-3 expertise and after-hours coverage. Whether you need complete outsourcing or targeted augmentation during nights, weekends, and holidays, the engagement model adapts to your team's capabilities, maturity level, and budget constraints.
MSSP Services Tailored to Regulated Industries
PTG tailors MSSP playbooks, detection rules, and compliance reporting to each industry's specific threat profile, regulatory mandate, and operational environment.
Healthcare & Life Sciences
ePHI protection, HIPAA Security and Privacy Rule attestation, FDA medical device security monitoring, and telehealth platform coverage. The Triangle's healthcare ecosystem — including organizations serving the Duke Health and UNC Health networks — faces unique challenges from medical IoT devices, legacy clinical systems, and strict privacy requirements governing security telemetry containing protected health information.
Defense Contractors & Aerospace
CMMC 2.0 Level 1 through Level 3 compliance, ITAR data handling, and DFARS 7012 incident reporting. With Fort Liberty and numerous defense contractors in the Fayetteville-Raleigh corridor, PTG's CMMC expertise addresses the 110 practices of NIST 800-171 with audit-ready evidence. We support Azure GCC High and AWS GovCloud environments for organizations handling Controlled Unclassified Information.
Financial Services & Banking
GLBA, NYDFS 500, PCI DSS v4.0, SOC 2, and FFIEC compliance for banks, credit unions, fintech firms, and investment advisors across the Triangle's growing financial services sector. PTG's financial configuration includes real-time wire transfer fraud detection, account takeover monitoring, insider threat indicators, and the regulatory examination audit trails that financial examiners require.
Legal & Professional Services
Attorney-client privilege protection, e-discovery readiness, data breach privilege considerations, and ethical obligation compliance for law firms in Raleigh, Durham, and across North Carolina. PTG's professional services configuration includes privilege-aware monitoring rules, document management system integration, and the discretion required when security events involve confidential client matters.
SaaS & Technology
Zero-trust architecture implementation, multi-cloud governance, API security monitoring, and SOC 2 Type II continuous evidence generation. Research Triangle Park's technology sector demands security operations that keep pace with rapid development cycles, ephemeral cloud infrastructure, and complex microservices architectures without creating deployment bottlenecks or slowing engineering velocity.
Manufacturing & Critical Infrastructure
ICS/SCADA threat modeling, NIST 800-82 compliance, IT/OT convergence security, and supply chain monitoring. PTG's OT-aware configuration monitors industrial control systems without disrupting production, detecting anomalous commands, unauthorized configuration changes, and lateral movement from IT to OT network segments in manufacturing environments throughout the Triangle and nationwide.
From Discovery to Full Coverage in 30 Days
PTG's structured five-phase onboarding ensures complete security coverage with zero operational disruption. SMB environments reach full telemetry in 30 days; complex multi-cloud enterprises average 60 to 90 days.
Discovery & Risk Assessment
Stakeholder interviews, complete asset inventory, network topology mapping, risk scoring, and compliance gap analysis against your target frameworks. We identify every log source, endpoint, cloud tenant, and network segment.
Solution Architecture
SIEM deployment roadmap, log-source rationalization, detection rule development, compliance control mapping, and incident response playbook creation tailored to your environment and approval chains.
Deployment & Integration
Lightweight agents, API connectors, cloud integrations, and threat-intelligence feeds activated across your infrastructure. SIEM correlation rules tuned against your environment's baseline traffic patterns.
Validation & Tuning
Two-week tuning period to suppress false positives, validate alert fidelity, test escalation workflows, and confirm that containment runbooks execute correctly. Zero-trust verification of every detection rule.
Continuous Operations
24/7 SOC monitoring live. Weekly threat-hunt sprints, monthly KPI reviews, quarterly executive briefings, and ongoing tuning to maintain detection accuracy as your environment evolves.
MSSP Questions Answered
What is the difference between an MSSP and an MDR provider?
An MDR (Managed Detection and Response) provider typically focuses on endpoint detection and response from a single vendor's platform. An MSSP like PTG provides comprehensive security operations across your entire infrastructure: SIEM log correlation, EDR/XDR, network monitoring, cloud security, vulnerability management, compliance reporting, proactive threat hunting, and digital forensics. Think of MDR as one layer of detection; an MSSP is your complete, outsourced security operations department covering every attack surface.
How does PTG's MSSP pricing work?
PTG offers three transparent tiers — Core, Pro, and Enterprise — billed per protected asset per month. Every tier includes unlimited alert triage and incident response hours, so budgeting is predictable with no surprise overage charges. Core provides essential 24/7 monitoring and alerting. Pro adds proactive threat hunting, advanced compliance reporting, and dark web monitoring. Enterprise includes dedicated analyst resources and custom detection playbooks. Contact PTG at 919-348-4912 for a tailored quote based on your environment size and compliance requirements.
Can PTG work alongside our existing security tools?
Absolutely. PTG is vendor-agnostic and integrates with Microsoft Defender, SentinelOne, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Sophos, Splunk, and dozens of other platforms through standard syslog, API, and agent-based collection. Our engineers tune your current security controls before recommending any replacements, maximizing the return on your existing technology investments. The MSSP platform ingests telemetry from virtually any source, ensuring unified visibility without requiring rip-and-replace.
How long does MSSP onboarding take?
Small and midsize environments typically reach full telemetry within 30 days. Large, multi-cloud enterprises or organizations with OT/SCADA environments average 60 to 90 days. PTG's five-phase onboarding — Discovery, Architecture, Deployment, Validation, and Continuous Operations — follows a structured sequence that minimizes disruption to your daily operations while achieving complete coverage as quickly as possible.
Do you offer co-managed SOC arrangements for organizations with internal security staff?
Yes. PTG provides co-managed SOC options that augment your internal security team with Tier-3 expertise, or provide after-hours, weekend, and holiday coverage so your staff can focus on strategic projects during business hours. Co-managed engagements include shared dashboards, coordinated escalation procedures, joint playbook development, and regular knowledge-transfer sessions designed to build your internal team's capabilities over time. Many organizations start fully managed and transition to co-managed as their internal maturity increases.
What compliance frameworks does PTG's MSSP reporting cover?
PTG generates compliance evidence for CMMC 2.0 (Levels 1 through 3), NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53 Rev 5, NIST CSF 2.0, HIPAA/HITECH, PCI DSS v4.0, SOC 2, ISO 27001:2022, GLBA, NYDFS 500, and FFIEC. Every alert, investigation, and response action auto-tags with the specific control identifiers it satisfies. Auditors receive structured evidence packets that directly reference the controls they are evaluating, turning compliance from a periodic scramble into a continuous, automated process.
Is the SOC truly 24/7/365, including holidays?
Yes. PTG's SOC operates around the clock, every day of the year, including federal holidays and weekends. A live U.S.-based cybersecurity analyst responds to critical alerts within 15 minutes at any hour. There are no coverage gaps during shift changes. Our AI-powered monitoring layer provides continuous event analysis that never sleeps, escalating confirmed threats to human analysts for investigation, containment decision-making, and coordinated response.
How does PTG handle incidents that require forensic investigation?
Because PTG operates a licensed digital forensics lab as part of our MSSP practice, incidents requiring forensic investigation are handled by the same team that detected the threat. There is no handoff to a third-party firm, no re-explaining your environment, and no gap in evidence chain of custody. Our Licensed Digital Forensic Examiner and forensic analysts have immediate access to the SIEM data, endpoint telemetry, and network captures collected during monitoring, dramatically accelerating investigation timelines and preserving evidence integrity from the moment of detection through potential litigation.
What size organizations does PTG's MSSP serve?
PTG's MSSP scales from 10-endpoint professional services firms to multi-thousand-endpoint enterprises. Our flexible tier model ensures organizations of any size receive security operations proportional to their risk profile and budget. Smaller organizations gain enterprise-grade protection that would be impossible to build internally. Larger organizations gain augmented SOC capabilities, Tier-3 expertise, proactive threat hunting, and integrated forensics that extend their existing security teams.
What happens if we already have a managed IT provider?
PTG frequently partners with existing MSPs. Your managed IT provider handles infrastructure, patching, and helpdesk operations, while PTG's MSSP handles threat detection, incident response, vulnerability management, and compliance reporting. We establish clear escalation pathways and shared communication channels so both teams coordinate effectively. Alternatively, PTG offers integrated managed IT and managed security services for organizations that prefer a single provider for both functions.
Ready to Outsource Your Security Operations?
Partner with PTG's MSSP team for 24/7 SOC monitoring, managed SIEM, and compliance-ready reporting. Schedule a free security assessment and receive two immediate hardening recommendations you can implement today.
5540 Centerview Dr, Suite 200, Raleigh, NC 27606 • BBB Accredited Since 2003 • Founded 2002