Cybersecurity · Boston

Cybersecurity Services in Boston

NetSys provides cybersecurity services to businesses in Boston: 24/7 managed detection and response on every device, identity and email protection across Microsoft 365, vulnerability scanning, staff training and immutable backups, with an engineer acting on alerts rather than forwarding them.

The short answer

NetSys provides cybersecurity to businesses in Boston: ThreatDown managed detection and response on every device, multifactor authentication and Conditional Access across Microsoft 365, Barracuda email protection, Rapid7 vulnerability scanning, security awareness training and immutable backups with tested restores. Delivery is remote-first from Brooklyn, with the help desk staffed seven days a week from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time and emergency service 24/7. On-site commitments are arranged in advance and sized to the engagement, including a nearby dedicated engineer where regular presence and availability have been confirmed. Ongoing agreements run month to month.

Service information by The NetSys Group. Our editorial standards.

How cybersecurity is delivered in Boston

Boston is about four hours from Brooklyn, so day-to-day work is remote and on-site visits are planned rather than dispatched same-day. Monitoring runs 24/7 from Brooklyn, and so does emergency service. Our staffed help-desk hours are 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time, seven days a week. The proposal states severe-incident escalation, authorized remediation and any other after-hours work. On-site commitments outside our on-site coverage (New York City, Long Island, Westchester, the Hudson Valley, North Jersey and Fairfield County, CT) are arranged in advance and sized to the engagement: a mostly remote engagement needs no dedicated on-site engineer, while an engagement that calls for regular presence, such as vCISO work with someone on site two days a week, can include a dedicated engineer with a drive time generally under an hour once availability, location and the visit schedule are confirmed in the proposal. Hardware can ship pre-configured where the project permits remote setup. Confirm landlord access, circuit diversity, cabling and equipment space before approving a network change. Carrier options to check in Boston include Comcast Business, Verizon Fios and Crown Castle fiber; availability, routing and installation dates must be verified at your address before a failover design is approved.

Who cybersecurity in Boston is built for

Businesses we can support in and around the Seaport, Back Bay, Kendall Square, the Financial District and Route 128 include biotech and life-sciences companies on Benchling, financial and asset-management firms on Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, law firms on iManage, medical practices on Epic, consulting and professional firms on Deltek, and universities' affiliates and nonprofits on Blackbaud. These are examples of business and application needs, not a list of local clients. We coordinate infrastructure, identity and integration with the application vendor, and identify any compliance requirements during discovery. Companies with an internal IT person can agree a split of responsibilities, systems and coverage hours before work begins.

Continuity planning for your Boston business

Start with the systems your team cannot work without. Record the impact of a building power outage, a failed internet circuit, a compromised account and an unavailable application vendor. Then agree recovery priorities, an independent access path, protected backup copies and a test for each critical workflow. Controls reduce particular risks; they do not guarantee that an incident cannot happen.

What is included

Cybersecurity in Boston: what NetSys delivers

Watch and respond

ThreatDown MDR and EDR on every device, with a 24/7 team that isolates and investigates rather than emails
Rapid7 InsightIDR or Microsoft Sentinel collecting identity, email, endpoint and firewall logs so an intrusion is visible in one place
Written incident response plan with named owners, tested once a year on a tabletop exercise
Post-incident reports written for your insurer and your counsel, not just your IT team

Harden the tenant and the people

Microsoft Defender for Business, Entra ID Conditional Access and phishing-resistant sign-in for finance staff
Legacy authentication off, dormant accounts closed, forwarding rules and consent grants reviewed monthly
Barracuda Email Protection with impersonation protection, plus DMARC enforcement for the domain
KnowBe4 training on a recurring schedule, with a wire-transfer and vendor-change verification procedure written for finance

Measure and recover

Rapid7 InsightVM scans of the internal and external footprint, with a monthly fix list
Managed firewall with intrusion prevention, segmentation and vendor access that is logged and switched off when the work ends
Immutable, off-site backups with restores run on a schedule and the result written down
Free remote external penetration test before you hire us; Tier 2 source-code testing quoted per codebase

Illustrative engagement

A 30-person financial services firm in the Seaport

This planning example shows how we could scope the work. It is not a claim about a customer in this market or a measured result. For published customer work, see our case studies.

A 30-person financial services firm in the Seaport whose Microsoft 365 tenant was set up years ago and never hardened, running Salesforce Financial Services Cloud and moving money by wire every week. Ransomware hit a competitor two blocks away and the owner wants to know if it could happen here. Nobody can say whether a mailbox was compromised or the sender was spoofed, the antivirus came bundled with the laptops, and the firewall the last provider installed has a vendor port open that nobody remembers approving.

Microsoft 365 investigation: sign-in logs, forwarding rules and consent grants reviewed to establish whether a mailbox was compromised, then multifactor authentication and Entra ID Conditional Access enforced for every account
Barracuda Email Protection placed ahead of the mailboxes and SPF and DKIM alignment checked, with DMARC reporting and staged enforcement to reduce unauthorized use of the domain, with a callback rule adopted for any change in payment instructions
Standing administrator rights converted to just-in-time roles through Entra ID Privileged Identity Management, with break-glass accounts kept outside it
Datto SIRIS backups with immutable cloud copies for the servers and a Microsoft 365 backup for the tenant, with a restore tested and the result written down for the insurer
A written incident response plan with named owners, the insurer's hotline and counsel's contact, tested on a tabletop exercise
Vendor questionnaire answered from the documented controls, with the evidence attached rather than promised

The insurer's questions get answered with evidence instead of assurances, wire instructions have a verification step that does not depend on memory, and an engineer is watching the tenant at night. The business gets one person to call. The agreement stays month to month.

Published case study

Firewall, antivirus and maintenance for a five-person office

A five-person office needed the basics done properly rather than an enterprise stack. NetSys replaced the internet provider's router with a business-grade firewall configured with sensible rules, secure remote access and logging, deployed managed antivirus on every machine with updates and alerts handled centrally, and put patching, backup checks and health reviews on a schedule. The agreement covers what the office needs and nothing it does not, month to month. No outcome figures were measured for publication.

Read the full case study (5-person office)

From our client work

Cybersecurity work for other clients

Wealth management
RIA firm
Barracuda email protection for 117 licensed users, email archiving, cybersecurity monitoring, and account access management.
Cybersecurity for Financial Services IT for RIAs and Wealth Management
Healthcare
Home healthcare agency
Mobile device protection for 73 phones and tablets, secure email access, and remote removal of company data from lost devices.
Mobile Device Management IT for Healthcare
Construction and trades
Commercial electrical contractor
MFA rollout for 50 employees, secure mobile access to project files, and Microsoft 365 account management.
Multi-Factor Authentication Deployment IT for Construction

Client names are withheld. These examples were chosen for the work involved, not for where the client is, so none is presented as a Boston client.

Compliance in Boston: 201 CMR 17.00 and what sits on top of it

Massachusetts 201 CMR 17.00 requires covered holders of Massachusetts residents’ personal information to maintain a written information security program. Safeguards must reflect the organization’s size, resources and information; computer-security requirements include technical-feasibility qualifications. The service scope should identify the records, access controls, retention settings and incident evidence your business needs; your legal or compliance adviser determines which requirements apply. The security service is built to produce the evidence those rules ask for: multifactor authentication and Conditional Access reports, endpoint detection coverage, vulnerability scan results, backup restore records and a tested incident response plan. Discovery identifies missing records and assigns the documentation work. Applicable duties depend on the business, data, exemptions and contracts; your legal or compliance adviser determines which requirements apply.

Primary sources

Massachusetts: 201 CMR 17.00

What cybersecurity costs in Boston

Cybersecurity is priced per user per month when it runs as an ongoing service, and per project for an assessment or a remediation. What moves the number: how many devices and identities are in scope, how much incident remediation and recovery is needed beyond the monitoring and authorized MDR actions in scope, which compliance standard the evidence has to satisfy, and whether the Microsoft 365 tenant is already on Business Premium or the security tooling comes from us. The free external penetration test costs nothing and runs remotely before any of that. Our managed IT pricing page explains how the fee is built.

How the monthly fee is built

Who this fits, and who it does not

Best fit: businesses with enough people, money movement or regulated data that a breach would hurt, and no security team of their own: professional practices, healthcare groups, importers, financial firms, nonprofits and agencies holding client credentials. Companies with an internal IT person fit as a co-managed arrangement.

Not a fit: organizations that want a security product installed and left alone. The service is monitored, reviewed and reported monthly, and it changes the way administrators, finance staff and vendors work. If that is not wanted, a tool purchase serves better than an engagement.

Cybersecurity in Boston: FAQs

What is managed detection and response, and do we need it?

MDR puts an EDR agent on every device and a 24/7 team behind it that isolates a compromised machine and investigates, rather than an antivirus that quarantines a file and moves on. Cyber insurers now ask for it by name, which is the practical reason most businesses in Boston end up with it.

Can you work alongside our internal IT person?

Yes. In a co-managed arrangement your person keeps the day-to-day and we run monitoring, the security stack, vulnerability management and after-hours response, with the split written into the agreement.

Do we need a security assessment before signing up?

The free external test is where most engagements start. A fuller assessment of the tenant, devices, network and backups is scoped separately and produces a prioritized fix list that becomes the first ninety days of the service.

Do you have an office in Boston?

Our office is in Brooklyn, NY. Boston is about four hours from Brooklyn, so day-to-day work is remote and on-site visits are planned rather than dispatched same-day. Outside our on-site coverage the on-site arrangement is agreed before the engagement starts and sized to what it needs: none for a mostly remote account, or a dedicated engineer where regular presence such as vCISO work with someone on site two days a week is part of the scope. A drive time generally under an hour is an option subject to confirming engineer availability and your address. The help desk is staffed seven days a week from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time, with emergency service 24/7. The proposal states the on-site arrangement and any travel in writing, and the agreement runs month to month.

How can IT support help with Massachusetts data-security requirements?

Start with the free test

See what an attacker sees before they do.

The free assessment is a remote external penetration test, limited to the information available to NetSys and the external scope we agree with you. Internal reviews and ongoing security management are scoped separately.

Explore Cybersecurity Scope 845-203-3914