Penetration Testing in Pennsylvania
HackersHub runs offensive security engagements for organisations across Pennsylvania: the academic medical centres and pharma corridor of Greater Philadelphia, where Penn Medicine, Jefferson Health and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia sit beside Comcast and the Vanguard campus in Malvern; Pittsburgh's health, banking and robotics economy built around UPMC, Highmark Health, PNC and Carnegie Mellon University; and the Commonwealth agencies and contractors of Harrisburg. Every engagement is scoped by hand and executed by certified testers (OSCP as the minimum, with OSWE and CREST holders on the team) who work remotely from Amsterdam and travel to Pennsylvania sites when internal or physical access is in scope.
The Pennsylvania threat landscape
Pennsylvania's attack surface is shaped by two large metropolitan economies at opposite ends of the state and a dense middle of hospitals, manufacturers and public bodies. Healthcare is the dominant exposure. Integrated delivery networks such as UPMC, Penn Medicine, Jefferson Health, Geisinger, Penn State Health and Lehigh Valley Health Network run hundreds of clinics, acquired physician practices and connected medical devices, and every acquisition brings another directory, another remote-access appliance and another vendor with standing credentials. The cost of that sprawl is documented: in February 2023 the BlackCat (ALPHV) ransomware group compromised a physician practice inside Lehigh Valley Health Network, the network declined to pay, and the attackers published patient records and clinical images; the class action that followed was settled for 65 million US dollars in 2024. Greater Philadelphia adds pharma and life-sciences research, media and telecoms, and asset managers whose treasury and client-servicing functions draw business email compromise. Pittsburgh adds banking headquarters, a robotics and autonomy cluster spun out of Carnegie Mellon, and research data from federally funded university work. Harrisburg concentrates the state agencies and the contractors that process Commonwealth data. Pennsylvania's legislature has tightened the rules in step: the Breach of Personal Information Notification Act was amended in 2022 to impose encryption and notification duties on state agencies and their contractors, and Act 33 of 2024 added Attorney General notice and complimentary credit monitoring where more than 500 residents are affected. What we find in Pennsylvania environments repeats from one engagement to the next: flat clinical networks reachable from administrative VLANs, inherited domain trusts from acquired practices, vendor VPN accounts with no multi-factor authentication, and research tenants that outlived the study they were built for.
Need a penetration test in Pennsylvania?
Written scope, named OSCP-certified testers, report within a week of the last testing day.
Pennsylvania sectors and what we test
Six sectors account for most Pennsylvania scoping requests; each has its own attack paths and its own evidence trail.
Health systems & academic medicine (statewide)
Integrated delivery networks in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Hershey, Danville and the Lehigh Valley, children's hospitals, acquired physician groups and the health-tech vendors serving them. HIPAA Security Rule technical evaluation evidence (45 CFR 164.308(a)(8)), clinical-network and medical-device segmentation testing, identity-led methodology across merged directories, and breach-readiness mapped to the Pennsylvania notification act.
Banking, asset management & insurance
Bank holding companies and regional lenders in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, the asset managers of the Main Line and Malvern, insurers in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, and credit unions statewide. External and internal pentests, privileged-access and identity assessments, BEC-resilience phishing simulation. Evidence aligned to the FFIEC IT Examination Handbook, the GLBA Safeguards Rule, SEC Regulation S-P and the Pennsylvania Insurance Data Security Act.
Pharma, life sciences & contract research
Research and manufacturing sites across Greater Philadelphia and the King of Prussia corridor, cell and gene therapy companies spun out of the University of Pennsylvania, and contract research organisations. Laboratory and instrument-network segmentation testing, cloud and identity assessments of research tenants, red team operations against IP-collection tradecraft, reporting aligned to 21 CFR Part 11 and GxP change control.
Robotics, autonomy & technology (Pittsburgh)
Robotics, autonomous-vehicle and AI companies that grew out of Carnegie Mellon, plus the SaaS and software firms of the Strip District and Oakland. Embedded and firmware testing, fleet-management and telemetry API assessments, cloud-configuration review and model-endpoint testing against the OWASP LLM Top 10 2025. SOC 2 evidence for enterprise buyers and export-control-aware handling where ITAR or EAR applies.
Manufacturing, energy & utilities
Steel, chemicals, food and consumer-goods manufacturers, natural-gas producers in the Marcellus Shale region, and the electric and gas utilities regulated by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. IT/OT segmentation review, passive-first testing of control-system boundaries, supplier remote-access assessments, and reporting mapped to NERC CIP where bulk electric system assets are in scope.
Commonwealth agencies, higher education & public-sector contractors
State agencies and authorities in Harrisburg, the state-system and state-related universities, school districts, counties, and the IT and service contractors that hold Commonwealth data. External perimeter and web-application testing, Active Directory assessments, and evidence aligned to NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 and the encryption and notification duties the 2022 amendments placed on agencies and their contractors.
The rulebooks Pennsylvania reports are written against
Pennsylvania organisations usually answer to a state statute, a federal sector rule and at least one customer framework at the same time. Each HackersHub report carries an executive summary, CVSS-scored findings with evidence, an attack narrative and a prioritised remediation plan, and a retest of medium and higher findings within 90 days closes the loop for the auditor.
- Pennsylvania Breach of Personal Information Notification Act (73 P.S. 2301 et seq.)
- Act 151 of 2022: encryption and notification duties for state agencies, counties, school districts and the contractors that hold their data
- Act 33 of 2024: Attorney General notice and complimentary credit monitoring when a breach requires notifying more than 500 residents
- Pennsylvania Insurance Data Security Act (40 Pa.C.S. Chapter 45) for insurers and licensees
- Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission cybersecurity planning requirements for jurisdictional utilities
- HIPAA Security Rule, periodic technical evaluation under 45 CFR 164.308(a)(8)
- GLBA Safeguards Rule (16 CFR Part 314) and FFIEC examination guidance for banks and credit unions
- SEC Regulation S-P as amended in 2024, for advisers and fund complexes
- Electronic-records controls under 21 CFR Part 11 for regulated laboratories and plants
- NERC CIP-005, CIP-007 and CIP-010 where bulk electric assets are in scope
- PCI DSS v4.0.1, Requirement 11.4
- SOC 2 criteria CC7.1 and CC7.4
- NIST SP 800-115 test methodology and NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 control CA-8
What we deliver in Pennsylvania
Each service below is scoped to the systems a Pennsylvania regulator, examiner or hospital board will ask about, not to a fixed package.
See also:Penetration Testing in PhiladelphiaPenetration Testing in New JerseyPenetration Testing in United States
How HackersHub delivers in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania buyers usually ask the location question first, so here is the plain answer. HackersHub is an Amsterdam firm, founded in the Netherlands in 2015, and it does not operate an office in the United States. The work that can be done over the internet, which is most external, web-application, API and cloud scope, is run from the Netherlands. The work that needs a cable or a badge, such as an internal Active Directory assessment in a Pittsburgh hospital or a wireless review at a Lehigh Valley plant, is done by our testers in person, with vetted US delivery partners joining where the engagement benefits from it. Calls are held during Eastern Time working hours. After more than 2,500 completed engagements, the standard is the same everywhere: OSCP as the floor for every tester, OSWE and CREST specialists for the harder application and infrastructure work, and Michael van Mameren (OSCP) leading delivery. Pennsylvania is also part of a larger plan, because HackersHub intends to enter the US market at full scale in Q1 2027. Quotes are written per scope after a call, never from a price list.
Frequently asked questions: Pennsylvania
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