NWN Adds Managed Security Services With MDR Partnership, Penetration Testing And vCISO

NWN wins kudos this week for launching a suite of managed security services, NWN Cybersecurity, which aims to boost cyber defense for staff-constrained customers through human expertise and AI augmentation, NWN executives told CRN.

The Boston-based company, No. 59 on CRN’s 2025 Solution Provider 500, said that NWN Cybersecurity combines new in-house managed security services such as penetration testing and vCISO with MDR (managed detection and response) delivered through a partnership with Arctic Wolf.

With the NWN Cybersecurity offering, “now you have full-stack managed services, along with a managed security player, all embedded into one pane of glass,” NWN CEO Jim Sullivan said. “It addresses safer environments for customers—whether it’s on-prem or in the cloud, across multiple domains, along with multiple different security solutions that we’re integrating to.”

The MDR offering will provide 24/7 agentic-enhanced protection to customers including continuous detection, mitigation and resolution of threats and attacks.

NWN also unveiled a “fully managed penetration testing as-a-service platform that’s ours that we’re deploying. And we have ransomware protection as-a-service, which is built in-house here,” said NWN CMO Andrew Gilman.

NWN’s new vCISO service comprises “new strategic security consulting capabilities—where we can come in and help our customers and augment their leadership capabilities in the CISO realm—to really prepare for what’s next while continuing to help them operate at scale,” Gilman said.