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How to Choose a Cybersecurity Company in Pennsylvania
A small business in Pennsylvania should hire a cybersecurity company that builds security into how your IT is run every day, works to a written standard like the CIS Controls, can show you evidence instead of reassurance, and knows the compliance rules that apply to your industry. For most businesses with 10 to 250 employees, that's a managed IT provider with security built in, or a co-managed partner if you already have internal IT.
Dawn Sizer · CEO and Co-Founder, 3rd Element Consulting · The kinds of providers you'll run into
- Managed IT providers with security built in. One team runs your IT and your security to the same standard. This is the best fit for most small businesses without their own IT staff.
- Security-only providers (MSSPs). Monitoring and threat response, usually alongside an internal IT team or another IT provider. Strong on detection, but someone else still has to fix what they find.
- Co-managed partners. Security and IT depth that works alongside your internal IT person or team.
- Large national providers. Broad resources, but support often runs through a centralized help desk, and on-site help can be far away.
- One-person shops. Often responsive and affordable, but everything depends on one person being available.
What to look for
- Security in the baseline, not sold as an add-on. MFA, endpoint protection, patching, email security, and tested backups should be standard.
- A written standard. Ask which framework they work to (CIS Controls or NIST CSF) and ask to see it.
- Evidence you can check. Can they show which accounts lack MFA, which devices are behind on patches, and when a problem started?
- Real monitoring, not just alerts. Most IT providers rely on the monitoring built into their vendors' tools. Each tool watches its own piece and drops an alert into a ticket queue when something crosses a threshold. That's alert handling, not monitoring. Real monitoring means watching the whole environment together, keeping the history, and noticing what's changing before anything breaks. Ask a provider: if a problem started three weeks ago, can you show me when, and what changed?
- Incident planning. Do they help you write an incident response plan before you need it?
- Cyber insurance readiness. Can they document the controls your carrier asks about at renewal?
- Compliance experience for your industry. HIPAA for healthcare, the FTC Safeguards Rule for accounting and financial firms, CJIS for police departments and municipalities.
- Their own security. How do they protect their access to your systems, and who actually answers your calls: their own staff, or a subcontracted help desk?
- Fair contract terms. Clear scope, real SLAs, and exit terms that don't hold your accounts hostage.
- Local presence. Can someone be on site when the problem can't be fixed remotely?
Red flags
- A low monthly price per user, where nearly everything beyond basic support turns out to be an additional fee
- A sales pitch built on a scary scan score, with no plain-language walkthrough of what it found, what it means for your business, or how they got the information
- Security offered as optional or "extra"
- No written standard, just "we manage and monitor your systems"
- Vague answers about who supports you and from where
- Long auto-renewals, termination fees tied to the remaining contract, or provider-owned documentation
What Pennsylvania businesses should know
Pennsylvania updated its data breach notification law in 2024. If a breach requires notifying more than 500 Pennsylvania residents, you must also notify the state Attorney General at the same time, and some breaches require offering affected people free credit monitoring. A good cybersecurity partner helps you prevent that situation, and helps you respond correctly if it happens.
Where 3rd Element fits
3rd Element Consulting is a managed IT and cybersecurity provider headquartered in Mechanicsburg, owned and run by its founders since 2005.
- Standard: every environment is held to a written, CIS Controls-aligned security baseline.
- Our own team: we never subcontract our help desk, and every member of our staff is CJIS cleared.
- Monitoring: vendor tools each show one slice of an environment, and none of the commercial tools we've found can watch an environment as a whole with real depth. So we built our own system to do it. We monitor every layer of the environments we manage, from network devices and endpoints to Microsoft 365 sign-ins, email DNS records, backups, Wi-Fi health, and internet speed, and keep 90 days of history across all of it. That lets us see problems forming, often before anyone reports them, and show exactly when something started and why.
- Co-managed: we work alongside organizations of any size with at least one internal IT person.
We're not the right fit for businesses looking for low-cost, help-desk-only coverage, break/fix support, or security as an optional extra.
Tools to help you decide
Use the IT Provider Vetting Checklist to compare the providers you're considering.
Use the IT Audit Readiness Checklist to review your current environment before you decide what comes next.
Common questions
Questions leadership usually asks first.
Continue reading
Related work and reading.
Cybersecurity Services
Security built into how IT is managed every day.
Read more: Cybersecurity ServicesStandards and Security Baseline
The written security baseline behind every environment we manage.
Read more: Standards and Security BaselineHow We Protect Our Own Access
The questions to ask about an IT provider's own security.
Read more: How We Protect Our Own AccessManaged IT Services Contract
Scope, SLAs, extra fees, and exit terms to review before signing.
Read more: Managed IT Services ContractCIS Controls vs NIST CSF
How the two frameworks differ and work together.
Read more: CIS Controls vs NIST CSFNext step
Want an honest look at where your security stands?
Schedule an IT Environment Review.