Cybersecurity and Compliance
Built for SaaS Companies

SOC 2 certification is the gold standard for demonstrating security to enterprise customers, and it has become a non-negotiable requirement for SaaS companies selling to mid-market and enterprise organizations. The SOC 2 framework, developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), evaluates your organization against five Trust Services Criteria: Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy. Most SaaS companies start with Security (the common criteria) and add additional criteria based on their customers' requirements and their own business model.

Our SOC 2 readiness consulting begins with a comprehensive gap analysis where we evaluate your current security controls, policies, procedures, and technical implementations against the SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria. This gap analysis produces a detailed roadmap that identifies every control gap that must be addressed before your audit, prioritized by effort and criticality. For SaaS companies going through their first SOC 2 engagement, this roadmap is invaluable because it eliminates the guesswork and ensures your team focuses on the right priorities rather than over-engineering controls in some areas while leaving critical gaps in others.

We then work alongside your team to design and implement the controls identified in the gap analysis. This includes developing security policies and procedures tailored to your SaaS business model, implementing technical controls for access management, encryption, logging, monitoring, and incident response, establishing vendor management processes for your supply chain, creating employee onboarding and offboarding procedures that meet SOC 2 requirements, and implementing change management controls that integrate with your development workflow rather than creating bureaucratic friction that slows your engineering team.

When you are ready for the audit, we coordinate with your chosen CPA firm, prepare your team for auditor interviews, organize evidence collection, and provide guidance throughout the examination process. For SOC 2 Type II engagements, which evaluate controls over a period of time rather than at a single point, we help you maintain compliance throughout the observation period and address any issues that arise before they become audit findings. Our goal is to ensure a clean report that gives your sales team the competitive ammunition they need to close enterprise deals.

Your SaaS application's security is only as strong as the cloud infrastructure it runs on. Misconfigured cloud resources are one of the leading causes of data breaches in SaaS companies, and the complexity of modern cloud environments means that security gaps can emerge with every infrastructure change, deployment, or resource provisioning event. Our cloud infrastructure security assessments provide a comprehensive evaluation of your AWS, Azure, GCP, or multi-cloud environment against security best practices and compliance requirements.

We evaluate every layer of your cloud infrastructure starting with identity and access management. IAM is the most critical security control in any cloud environment, and it is also the most commonly misconfigured. We review IAM policies for least-privilege compliance, identify over-permissive roles and service accounts, evaluate cross-account access configurations, assess the use of multi-factor authentication for privileged access, and review credential rotation policies. A single overly permissive IAM policy can give an attacker the keys to your entire cloud environment, so IAM review is always our highest priority.

Network security assessment covers VPC configurations, security group rules, network access control lists, load balancer configurations, CDN security settings, WAF rules, and the overall network architecture including public and private subnet design. We verify that your network segmentation properly isolates sensitive workloads, that unnecessary ports and services are not exposed, and that traffic between services is encrypted and authenticated. For organizations using containers and Kubernetes, we assess cluster security configurations, pod security policies, network policies, service mesh configurations, and container image security.

Data protection assessment evaluates encryption at rest and in transit for all data stores including databases, object storage, message queues, and caching layers. We verify that encryption keys are properly managed using cloud-native key management services, that key rotation is automated, and that data classification and retention policies are implemented consistently across all services. We also assess backup configurations, disaster recovery capabilities, and data residency compliance for organizations with geographic data sovereignty requirements. Every finding is mapped to the relevant SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, or PCI DSS control requirements to streamline your compliance documentation.

Your SaaS application is your product, and a security vulnerability in your application is a direct threat to your business. Application penetration testing evaluates your web application, mobile applications, and APIs for vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to access customer data, compromise user accounts, manipulate transactions, or gain unauthorized access to your infrastructure. For SaaS companies, application security testing is both a compliance requirement for frameworks like SOC 2 and PCI DSS and a fundamental business necessity for maintaining customer trust.

Our application penetration testing methodology covers the full OWASP Top 10 and extends well beyond it to address SaaS-specific concerns. We test for injection vulnerabilities including SQL, NoSQL, GraphQL, and command injection. We evaluate authentication and session management for weaknesses including credential stuffing susceptibility, session fixation, token manipulation, OAuth implementation flaws, and multi-factor authentication bypass. We assess authorization controls to ensure that tenant isolation is properly enforced, that horizontal and vertical privilege escalation is not possible, and that API endpoints enforce proper access controls at every level.

For APIs specifically, we test authentication mechanisms including API keys, JWT tokens, OAuth 2.0 flows, and service-to-service authentication. We evaluate rate limiting and throttling controls, test for mass assignment vulnerabilities, check for excessive data exposure in API responses, assess webhook security including signature validation and replay protection, and test GraphQL implementations for introspection abuse, query complexity attacks, and authorization bypass. SaaS applications typically expose dozens or hundreds of API endpoints, and each one represents a potential attack surface that must be systematically evaluated.

We also test for business logic vulnerabilities specific to your application's domain. These include payment manipulation, subscription bypass, feature flag tampering, data export abuse, invitation and referral system manipulation, and race conditions in concurrent operations. Business logic flaws are the most dangerous category of vulnerability because they cannot be detected by automated scanning tools and require a tester who understands your application's intended behavior. Our penetration testing reports include detailed findings, proof-of-concept demonstrations, and developer-friendly remediation guidance your engineering team can implement immediately.

Modern SaaS development relies on continuous integration and continuous deployment pipelines that automate the process of building, testing, and deploying code to production. These pipelines are powerful productivity tools, but they also introduce security risks if not properly configured and monitored. A compromised CI/CD pipeline can allow an attacker to inject malicious code into your application, exfiltrate secrets and credentials, or deploy backdoors that persist across subsequent deployments. The SolarWinds and Codecov breaches demonstrated the devastating impact of CI/CD supply chain attacks on a global scale.

Our CI/CD security assessment evaluates the security of your entire development and deployment pipeline, from code repository configuration through production deployment. We review source code management settings including branch protection rules, code review requirements, and access controls. We assess build system configurations for pipeline injection vulnerabilities, evaluate secret management practices to ensure that API keys, database credentials, and encryption keys are not exposed in code, configuration files, or build logs. We review container image build processes for supply chain risks, including base image provenance, dependency scanning, and image signing.

We help SaaS companies implement a DevSecOps approach that integrates security into the development lifecycle without creating friction that slows engineering velocity. This includes recommending and configuring static application security testing (SAST) tools that run during code review, dynamic application security testing (DAST) tools that scan staging environments before promotion to production, software composition analysis (SCA) tools that identify vulnerable dependencies, and infrastructure-as-code scanning tools that catch cloud misconfigurations before they are deployed. The goal is to shift security left in your development process, catching vulnerabilities when they are cheapest and easiest to fix.

For organizations using containerized deployments, we assess Docker and Kubernetes security configurations, evaluate container runtime security, review network policies and service mesh configurations, and help implement admission controllers that enforce security policies at deployment time. We also help establish security gates in your deployment pipeline that prevent releases with critical vulnerabilities from reaching production while allowing your team to maintain the rapid release cadence that SaaS customers expect.

Most SaaS companies, especially those in growth stages, cannot justify the cost of a full-time Chief Information Security Officer. Yet enterprise customers increasingly expect to see a named security executive responsible for your security program, and compliance frameworks like SOC 2 require defined security roles and responsibilities. Our virtual CISO (vCISO) service provides experienced security leadership on a fractional basis, giving your company the strategic security guidance it needs without the burden of a six-figure executive salary.

Our vCISO for SaaS companies focuses on the security and compliance priorities that matter most for SaaS business success. This includes developing and maintaining your security policy framework, establishing a risk management program that aligns security investments with business priorities, providing security guidance for product development decisions, representing your security program to enterprise customers during sales cycles, managing vendor security assessments for your supply chain, and providing quarterly security program reviews to your board or executive leadership team.

The vCISO also serves as your organization's point person for compliance activities, coordinating SOC 2 audits, managing penetration testing schedules, overseeing vulnerability management programs, and ensuring that security controls remain effective as your application and infrastructure evolve. For SaaS companies entering regulated verticals such as healthcare (HIPAA), financial services (PCI DSS, GLBA), or government (FedRAMP, CMMC), the vCISO provides the regulatory expertise needed to understand and meet these additional compliance obligations without disrupting your core business operations.

Perhaps most importantly, the vCISO provides continuity and institutional knowledge about your security program. Rather than depending on individual engineers who may change roles or leave the company, your security program has a dedicated leader who maintains the strategic vision, ensures consistent execution, and provides the accountability that auditors and enterprise customers expect. Our vCISO professionals integrate into your leadership team, attending executive meetings, participating in product planning, and ensuring that security considerations are factored into every major business decision.

For SaaS companies, security awareness training must go beyond standard phishing awareness to include secure development practices that are directly relevant to your engineering team's daily work. Your developers are writing the code that handles customer data, authenticates users, processes payments, and manages access controls. Their security knowledge directly determines the security of your product, and investing in developer security training is one of the highest-ROI security investments a SaaS company can make.

Our security awareness training for SaaS development teams covers secure coding practices specific to your technology stack, including input validation, output encoding, parameterized queries, secure authentication implementation, cryptographic best practices, and secure API development. We provide hands-on training using real-world vulnerability examples and interactive labs rather than generic slideware that engineers ignore. Training is tailored to your technology stack, whether you build with JavaScript, Python, Go, Java, Ruby, or other languages, and addresses the specific frameworks and libraries your team uses in production.

Beyond secure coding, our training covers security topics relevant to the broader SaaS organization including incident response procedures, data handling and classification, access management best practices, third-party risk management, social engineering awareness, and the specific compliance requirements that apply to your business. SOC 2 requires security awareness training for all personnel, and our training program satisfies this requirement while delivering genuine educational value that improves your team's ability to build and operate secure software. We provide training completion tracking and reporting that satisfies auditor requirements for your next SOC 2 examination.

Point-in-time security assessments provide valuable snapshots, but your cloud infrastructure and application code change daily. Vulnerability management and continuous monitoring ensure that your security posture is maintained between annual penetration tests and SOC 2 audits, providing the ongoing visibility needed to detect and respond to new vulnerabilities as they emerge. For SOC 2 compliance specifically, the Trust Services Criteria require evidence of continuous monitoring controls, not just annual assessments.

Our vulnerability management program for SaaS companies includes regular automated scanning of your cloud infrastructure, web applications, APIs, and dependencies. We correlate findings from multiple scanning sources, eliminate false positives through manual validation, and prioritize vulnerabilities based on exploitability, exposure, and business impact. Unlike raw scanner output that overwhelms engineering teams with thousands of undifferentiated findings, our managed vulnerability program delivers curated, prioritized findings that your development team can act on efficiently.

We also provide continuous monitoring of your cloud environment for security-relevant configuration changes, suspicious activity, and compliance drift. This includes monitoring for IAM policy changes, security group modifications, encryption setting changes, public exposure of resources, and other events that could indicate either misconfiguration or active compromise. Alerts are triaged by our team and escalated to your designated contacts with context and recommended actions, ensuring that security-relevant events are addressed promptly rather than lost in a flood of noisy alerts that nobody has time to review.

When a security incident occurs, the speed and effectiveness of your response determines the extent of damage to your business, your customers, and your reputation. SaaS companies face unique incident response challenges because a single incident can potentially affect all of your customers simultaneously, breach notification obligations may span multiple jurisdictions and regulatory frameworks, and your customers expect transparent, timely communication about incidents that may affect their data.

We help SaaS companies develop comprehensive incident response plans that address the specific scenarios most relevant to cloud-native applications, including unauthorized access to customer data, compromised developer credentials, supply chain compromise through third-party dependencies, denial-of-service attacks, ransomware targeting cloud infrastructure, and insider threats. Each scenario includes defined roles and responsibilities, escalation procedures, communication templates for customer notification, and technical response procedures for containment, eradication, and recovery.

When an incident occurs, our team is available to provide hands-on response support including forensic investigation, containment, eradication, and recovery assistance. Our founder, Craig Petronella, is a Licensed Digital Forensic Examiner with the expertise to conduct thorough forensic investigations, preserve evidence for potential legal proceedings, and provide expert testimony if needed. For SaaS companies, having access to experienced incident response support can mean the difference between a contained incident and a catastrophic breach that destroys customer trust and threatens the viability of the business.

For a SaaS company starting from scratch, achieving SOC 2 Type I typically takes three to six months depending on your current security posture and the resources available to implement required controls. SOC 2 Type II requires a minimum observation period of six months after controls are in place, followed by the audit itself. Working with Petronella Technology Group, Inc., many of our SaaS clients achieve SOC 2 Type I within four months and transition to Type II within the following year. We accelerate the process by providing proven policy templates, prioritized implementation guidance, and hands-on support that prevents your team from wasting time on controls that are not required or over-engineering solutions for simple requirements.

SOC 2 Type I evaluates whether your security controls are suitably designed at a specific point in time. It is a snapshot assessment that says your controls are properly designed. SOC 2 Type II evaluates whether those controls are operating effectively over a period of time, typically six to twelve months. Type II is significantly more valuable to enterprise customers because it demonstrates that your controls actually work consistently, not just that they exist on paper. Most SaaS companies start with Type I to establish initial credibility, then transition to Type II for their next audit cycle. Enterprise customers increasingly require Type II reports, so the transition is an important milestone for SaaS companies targeting the enterprise market.

While SOC 2 does not explicitly mandate penetration testing, it is strongly recommended and has become a de facto expectation. Auditors evaluate your security assessment processes under Common Criteria 4.1 (COSO Principle 16), and penetration testing is the most effective way to demonstrate that you regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your security controls. Virtually every SaaS company we work with includes annual penetration testing as part of their SOC 2 program because it provides the evidence auditors need, enterprise customers expect it, and it genuinely improves your security posture. Our penetration testing reports are specifically formatted to support SOC 2 audit documentation.

Total SOC 2 costs vary based on your current security posture, the size and complexity of your environment, the scope of Trust Services Criteria included, and your choice of audit firm. Costs typically fall into three categories: readiness consulting to prepare your security program, the audit itself conducted by a CPA firm, and ongoing compliance maintenance tools and processes. We provide transparent pricing for our readiness consulting based on the specific scope of work identified during our initial assessment. Contact us for a detailed proposal tailored to your SaaS company's specific situation, and we will provide a clear breakdown of expected costs and timeline so you can plan your budget accordingly.

Yes, security questionnaire support is a standard part of our SaaS cybersecurity services. We help you build a comprehensive security documentation library that enables rapid, consistent responses to common questionnaire formats including SIG, CAIQ, VSA, and custom questionnaires. Once your documentation library is established, responding to new questionnaires becomes a matter of hours rather than weeks. We also help you establish a trust center or security page on your website that proactively addresses common security questions, reducing the volume of detailed questionnaires your team receives and accelerating the vendor due diligence process for your prospects.

Many SaaS companies serve regulated industries and need to comply with HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, CCPA, or other frameworks in addition to SOC 2. Petronella Technology Group, Inc. has deep expertise across all major compliance frameworks and can design a unified compliance program that addresses multiple requirements efficiently without duplicating effort. Many SOC 2 controls map directly to HIPAA, PCI DSS, and ISO 27001 requirements, so a well-designed compliance program satisfies multiple frameworks simultaneously. We help you understand which additional requirements apply to your specific business model, build incremental controls to close any gaps, and coordinate multiple compliance activities to minimize the burden on your engineering and operations teams.

Absolutely. While Petronella Technology Group, Inc. is headquartered in Raleigh, NC, we serve SaaS companies nationwide and work effectively with distributed teams. The nature of SaaS security and compliance work is inherently remote-friendly because the systems we assess are cloud-based, documentation is digital, and communication happens through the same tools your distributed team already uses. We work with SaaS companies across the United States, with clients in major tech hubs and growing markets alike. Our local presence in the Research Triangle gives us an especially deep connection to the thriving SaaS ecosystem in the Raleigh-Durham area, but our services are available to SaaS companies everywhere.

We design our security processes to integrate into your existing tools and workflows rather than imposing new ones. Security findings are delivered in formats compatible with your issue tracking system, whether that is Jira, Linear, GitHub Issues, or another platform. We communicate through your team's preferred channels, typically Slack or Microsoft Teams. Security scanning tools are configured to integrate with your CI/CD pipeline, running automatically as part of your existing build and deployment process. Policy documents are stored in your existing documentation platform. Our goal is to make security a natural extension of how your team already works, minimizing friction while maximizing security effectiveness.