Penetration Testing in Boston, MA
Greater Boston holds the densest concentration of life-sciences, research and medical-technology organisations in the world: the biotech and pharma campuses of Kendall Square and the Seaport, the medical-device manufacturers of the Route 128 and 495 corridors, the academic medical centres of the Longwood Medical Area, the universities of Cambridge and the Fenway, the robotics and AI companies that grew out of them, and the asset managers, insurers and SaaS platforms of the Financial District and Back Bay. HackersHub runs offensive security engagements scoped to the threat model these organisations actually face: state-aligned collection against clinical-trial data, molecule and device IP, ransomware against hospital and research networks, and the 201 CMR 17.00, HIPAA, FDA section 524B, SOC 2 and FedRAMP evidence that regulators, auditors and institutional customers now expect.
The Boston and Massachusetts threat landscape
Boston's adversaries are after intellectual property before they are after money. Biotech and pharma companies hold clinical-trial data, manufacturing processes and molecule designs worth years of research, and the state-aligned campaigns documented against vaccine and therapeutics developers since 2020 continue to target the sector through compromised research collaborators, cloud tenants shared with contract research organisations, and laboratory instruments that were never designed to sit on a corporate network. Medical-device manufacturers face a regulatory regime that has changed fundamentally: since March 2023, section 524B of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires premarket submissions for cyber devices to include a software bill of materials, a vulnerability-management plan and evidence that the device has been tested, and the FDA's premarket cybersecurity guidance expects penetration testing of the device, its connected components and its update mechanism. Hospital systems in the Longwood Medical Area and across the Commonwealth carry the clinical-ransomware exposure that has defined US healthcare since 2020; the 2022 incident at a Massachusetts medical-imaging provider exposed around two million patient records. Research universities combine federally funded research data, export-controlled work and some of the most open networks in any sector. Massachusetts regulates the result through 201 CMR 17.00, the data-security regulation issued under chapter 93H, which requires every organisation holding personal information about a Massachusetts resident to maintain a written information security program, encrypt personal data in transit and on portable devices, patch and monitor its systems, and review the scope of its security measures at least annually. Engagements in Boston routinely uncover laboratory and instrument networks reachable from the corporate domain, research collaborators with standing access to cloud tenants long after a study closed, device update servers protected by shared credentials, and identity drift between hospital, university and physician-practice directories that share a campus.
Need a penetration test in Boston?
Written scope, named OSCP-certified testers, report within a week of the last testing day.
Industries we routinely engage in Boston
Repeatable threat patterns by sector, drawn from engagement data rather than vendor marketing.
Biotech, pharma & clinical research
Kendall Square and Seaport biotechs, pharma research sites, contract research and manufacturing organisations, and the clinical-trial platforms they run on. Laboratory and instrument-network segmentation testing, cloud and identity assessments across research tenants, red team operations scoped against IP-collection tradecraft, and reporting aligned to 21 CFR Part 11 and GxP change-control expectations.
Medical devices & connected health
Device manufacturers along Route 128 and Interstate 495, digital-therapeutics and connected-health companies. Device, firmware, companion-app, cloud back-end and update-mechanism testing in support of FDA section 524B premarket submissions and the FDA premarket cybersecurity guidance; threat modelling and SBOM-driven vulnerability review; post-market testing after significant changes.
Hospital systems & academic medicine
Academic medical centres of the Longwood Medical Area, multi-hospital systems across eastern Massachusetts, specialty and paediatric hospitals, and the health-tech vendors serving them. HIPAA Security Rule evaluation evidence (45 CFR 164.308(a)(8)), clinical-network and medical-device segmentation review, identity-led methodology, and breach-readiness mapped to chapter 93H notification duties. Our HIPAA penetration testing guide at /insights/hipaa-penetration-testing/ covers scope and cadence.
Higher education & federally funded research
Research universities and institutes across Cambridge, the Fenway, Allston and the suburbs. Campus and research-network segmentation testing, identity and single-sign-on assessments, NIST SP 800-171 alignment for controlled unclassified information under DFARS 252.204-7012, FedRAMP Rev. 5 CA-8 evidence for research cloud environments, and phishing simulation calibrated for academic populations.
Robotics, AI & advanced engineering
Robotics manufacturers, autonomy and AI companies in Waltham, Boston and the Route 128 corridor. Embedded and firmware testing, fleet-management and telemetry API assessment, machine-learning pipeline and model-endpoint testing against the OWASP LLM Top 10 2025, and cloud-configuration review. SOC 2 evidence for enterprise customers and export-control-aware handling where ITAR or EAR applies.
Asset management, insurance & SaaS
Asset managers and mutual-fund complexes of the Financial District, insurers across Back Bay and the suburbs, and the SaaS platforms of the Seaport and Cambridge. External and internal penetration tests, identity and privileged-access assessments, and manual web-application and API pentests. Evidence mapped to SEC Regulation S-P, the amended GLBA Safeguards Rule, SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria and 201 CMR 17.00. Our SOC 2 penetration testing guide at /insights/soc-2-penetration-testing/ sets out what auditors expect.
Compliance frameworks we report against
Engagements for Boston-based organisations regularly feed into Massachusetts, federal and customer-driven regulatory reporting. Deliverables include a penetration testing statement, executive summary, technical report with proof-of-concept, and a remediation tracker, formatted to satisfy the evidence requirements of each framework below without additional documentation.
- 201 CMR 17.00 Standards for the Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth: written information security program (17.03), computer system security requirements (17.04) and annual review of the scope of security measures
- M.G.L. chapter 93H breach notification to affected residents, the Attorney General and the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation as soon as practicable and without unreasonable delay
- FDA section 524B of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (in force since 29 March 2023) and the FDA premarket cybersecurity guidance for cyber devices
- HIPAA Security Rule 45 CFR 164.308(a)(8) technical evaluation
- 21 CFR Part 11 electronic records and GxP change control for regulated research and manufacturing systems
- FedRAMP Rev. 5 CA-8 penetration testing and NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 for research and government cloud
- NIST SP 800-171 and DFARS 252.204-7012 for controlled unclassified information in federally funded research
- SEC Regulation S-P (amended May 2024) and GLBA Safeguards Rule (16 CFR Part 314) for asset managers, advisers and insurers
- SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria CC7.1 / CC7.4
- PCI DSS v4.0.1 Requirement 11.4 penetration testing where payments are in scope
- OWASP LLM Top 10 2025 and OWASP MASVS v2 for AI and companion-app testing
- NIST SP 800-115 technical security testing
Services delivered for Boston engagements
Same global service catalogue, scoped to the Massachusetts regulatory and operational context.
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Why Boston organisations choose HackersHub
HackersHub is an Amsterdam-headquartered practitioner firm with no US office, and we model Boston engagements honestly around that. External, web-application, API, cloud and device-firmware testing is delivered remotely from the Netherlands, with devices shipped to our Amsterdam lab where the scope calls for it; internal network, Active Directory, wireless, laboratory and physical assessments are delivered on site in Cambridge, Boston, the Longwood Medical Area and the Route 128 corridor by travelling testers. Scoping calls, status updates and report walkthroughs are scheduled on US Eastern business hours. Every engagement is led by named OSCP-, OSWE- or CREST-certified offensive security professionals, with Michael van Mameren (OSCP) acting as engagement lead, and reports are written directly against 201 CMR 17.00, HIPAA, FDA section 524B, SOC 2, FedRAMP and NIST SP 800-171 evidence categories. For regulated research and GxP environments, testing follows the client's change-control and validation procedures. Senior-level scoping calls happen within one business day.
Frequently asked questions: Boston
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