Penetration Testing for Raleigh, Durham and RTP Companies
Penetration testing in Raleigh is a scoped, authorized attack on your web app, API, cloud or network, carried out by OSCP-certified testers to find the flaws a real attacker would use. Budget Security delivers it to Research Triangle companies remotely, through a self-serve platform: scope online, start within 7 days of booking, and get an audit-ready report in your dashboard.
Pricing is published, not quoted: $985 per tester-day for US clients (€849 per day for EU clients). You see the price for your scope before you sign up, and you pay after the report is delivered.
What we test for Triangle companies
Pick the asset, pick the goal, set the number of days. Our scoping engine builds the test plan and shows what each added or removed day changes, so you know before you book whether the scope still meets your audit goal.
We test:
- Web applications. Authentication, access control, business logic, injection and session handling. Web application penetration testing
- APIs. The endpoints behind your product, including token handling and object-level authorization. API penetration testing
- Cloud environments. Identity, permissions, exposed storage and services in your cloud accounts. Cloud penetration testing
- External networks. Your internet-facing perimeter, tested from the position an attacker holds. External penetration testing
- Internal networks. Lateral movement and privilege escalation once a foothold exists. Internal penetration testing
- Mobile apps. iOS and Android clients and the APIs they talk to. Mobile penetration testing
Every test is manual, run by OSCP-certified testers, and scoped in tester-days. Most Triangle engagements run 3 to 5 days. If you ship weekly and want testing to keep pace with releases, see penetration testing as a service.
SOC 2 pentests for Raleigh SaaS and AI startups
The Raleigh-Durham ecosystem counts 1,500+ startups and five unicorns as of January 2026, with its strongest clusters in enterprise software, AI/ML and biotech. Most sell to enterprise buyers, who ask the same two questions in every security review: do you have a SOC 2 report, and when was your last penetration test?
SOC 2 does not use the words "penetration test" in the Trust Services Criteria. Your auditor still expects one, because it is the cleanest evidence that your controls hold against a real adversary. A pentest timed inside your observation window gives the auditor a dated report, a findings list and proof that you fixed what was found.
For a Triangle SaaS company that means a grey-box test of the production web app and its API, usually 3 to 5 tester-days, with retests of fixed findings tracked in the dashboard. AI companies add their model-serving endpoints and any customer data pipeline to the scope. Details on timing and evidence: SOC 2 penetration testing.
HIPAA testing for health-tech and life-science companies
North Carolina has 840 life-science companies and more than 675 of them sit in the Research Triangle region. Research Triangle Park alone covers 7,000 acres, 300+ companies and over 50,000 full-time employees. A large share of that work touches protected health information, clinical trial data or regulated lab systems.
HIPAA's Security Rule, 45 CFR 164.308(a)(8), requires "a periodic technical and nontechnical evaluation". The rule never says "penetration test", but a pentest is the evidence covered entities and business associates most often produce for that clause. If you build software for hospitals, run a clinical data platform, or process PHI for a health system, their compliance team will ask for the report.
We scope HIPAA tests around the systems that hold PHI: patient portals, integration APIs, cloud storage and the admin interfaces behind them. The report is written for the compliance file as well as the engineering backlog. See HIPAA penetration testing.
CMMC and NIST 800-171 for defense R&D suppliers
Defense research runs through the Triangle too: engineering firms, research contractors and software suppliers that hold Controlled Unclassified Information for Department of Defense programs. CMMC is now part of the DFARS acquisition rule (Phase 1 from 10 November 2025), so the requirement arrives in your contracts rather than as a memo.
What CMMC asks for depends on your level. Level 2 maps to the 110 practices of NIST SP 800-171 and does not mandate a penetration test by name. It does require vulnerability scanning every 90 days and assessment evidence that your controls work. Level 3 requires a penetration test every year. Suppliers at either level run an annual pentest because it is the plainest way to show an assessor that the 800-171 controls hold up under attack.
Framework detail and evidence mapping: CMMC penetration testing and NIST penetration testing.
North Carolina law for research, education and public-sector vendors
North Carolina has no statute that orders a private company to run a penetration test. Three parts of state law still matter if you sell to universities, school systems, hospitals or local government in the Triangle.
G.S. 75-65, the Identity Theft Protection Act. It applies to any business that owns or licenses personal information of North Carolina residents. After a breach, the notice you send must describe, in the statute's words, "the general acts of the business to protect the personal information from further unauthorized access". If you notify more than 1,000 people at once you also notify the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General's Office and the nationwide consumer reporting agencies. A penetration test is the document most businesses point to when they have to describe those "general acts". NC DOJ counted 2,349 breaches affecting more than nine million North Carolinians in 2025.
G.S. 143-800, the public-sector ransomware payment ban. Since 2022, "no State agency or local government entity shall submit payment or otherwise communicate with an entity that has engaged in a cybersecurity incident on an information technology system by encrypting data and then subsequently offering to decrypt that data in exchange for a ransom payment." The ban covers cities, counties, state agencies, school units, community colleges and the UNC system. If your product is the way in, your public-sector customer has no fallback, so expect procurement to ask for your testing evidence before signature and at renewal.
The NC Cyber Security Response Force. The North Carolina National Guard's CSRF runs penetration tests for state, local and critical-infrastructure bodies. It completed 13 tests for state and local municipalities in 2023. It does not test private companies, and its capacity does not cover every public body either, so vendors and most organizations buy their own.
The Triangle's universities have felt the vendor problem directly. The 2026 Canvas breach, with an intrusion on 25 April 2026 and a ransom message on the login page by 7 May, reached UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, Wake Forest, NC A&T, ECU and North Carolina school systems. The PowerSchool breach in late 2024 exposed data on nearly 4 million North Carolina students, teachers and parents. Both came in through a supplier. If you are the supplier, a current pentest report is the first thing their security office asks for.
This page is not legal advice. Check the current statute text or ask counsel before relying on it.
How remote delivery works from The Hague
We have no Raleigh office, and we say so plainly. Testing is delivered remotely by our team in The Hague, Netherlands, with working hours that overlap US Eastern time for the kick-off call, daily updates and the debrief.
Remote delivery is the norm in penetration testing, not the exception. Your web app, API, cloud environment and external perimeter are reached over the internet, which is exactly how an attacker reaches them. Internal network tests run through a VPN connection or a small virtual machine inside your network. Nothing about a pentest gets better because the tester sits in Wake County.
What you get instead of a site visit:
- Scoping online. Register assets, pick goals, set days, see the trade-offs before you commit.
- A dashboard, not a PDF in your inbox. Findings, severity, evidence, status, retests and multi-engagement history in one place.
- Scope changes without email threads. Add an asset or extend by a day from the dashboard.
- OSCP-certified testers on every engagement. We kept the caliber of a premium consultancy and replaced the delivery model around it.
Timeline, report and payment
Booking to start takes up to 7 days. A faster start is sometimes possible depending on tester availability, and an urgency fee can apply. Rescheduling after a date is confirmed is not free, because those tester-days were reserved for you.
The report lands in your dashboard within 48 hours after the test ends. Each finding has a severity, reproduction steps and a fix recommendation. Fixed findings are retested from the dashboard.
You pay after the report is delivered. Nothing is charged at booking.
The rate is $985 per tester-day for US clients (€849 per day for EU clients). The calculator shows the total for your scope before you sign up.
FAQ
Penetration testing in Raleigh: questions we get
What does a penetration test cost in Raleigh?
Do you have an office in Raleigh or the Research Triangle?
How fast can you start?
Can I use the report for a SOC 2, HIPAA or CMMC audit?
Do Duke, UNC or NC State require their vendors to have a penetration test?
When do I pay?
Who does the testing?
Scope your Raleigh pentest in minutes.
Register your assets, pick the goal, set the days. Published rate: $985 per tester-day for US clients (€849 per day for EU clients). Start within 7 days of booking, report within 48 hours after the test ends, pay after delivery.