Cybersecurity Standard Operating Procedures
Security policies define what your organization must do. Standard operating procedures define exactly how to do it.
Security policies define what your organization must do. Standard operating procedures define exactly how to do it. While policies establish requirements and expectations at a high level, SOPs provide the detailed, step-by-step instructions that ensure critical security tasks are performed consistently, correctly, and completely every time. Without SOPs, security operations depend on individual knowledge and judgment, which introduces variability, errors, and risk. When a key employee is absent, ill, or leaves the organization, undocumented procedures leave gaps that can expose your business to attack.
Petronella Technology Group develops comprehensive cybersecurity standard operating procedures that translate your security policies into practical, actionable workflows. Our SOPs are tailored to your specific environment, tools, and team, ensuring they are immediately usable and directly relevant to your daily operations. We have developed SOPs for hundreds of organizations across the Research Triangle, spanning healthcare, technology, financial services, government, and manufacturing.
Why Standard Operating Procedures Are Essential
- Consistency: SOPs ensure that critical security tasks are performed the same way every time, regardless of which team member performs them. This consistency is essential for maintaining security controls and passing compliance audits.
- Quality assurance: Detailed procedures reduce the risk of errors and omissions that can create security vulnerabilities. Each step includes verification points that ensure the procedure was completed correctly.
- Training efficiency: SOPs provide the training documentation that new team members need to get up to speed quickly. Instead of shadowing experienced staff for weeks, new employees can follow documented procedures to perform their duties correctly from day one.
- Compliance evidence: Compliance frameworks require evidence that security procedures exist and are followed. Documented SOPs with completion records provide the evidence auditors need.
- Business continuity: Documented procedures ensure that critical security operations continue even when key personnel are unavailable. This is essential for maintaining security during staff transitions, vacations, and emergencies.
- Continuous improvement: Documented procedures can be reviewed, measured, and improved over time. Without documentation, there is no baseline against which to measure improvement.
SOPs We Develop
User Account Management
Procedures for creating, modifying, and deactivating user accounts across all systems and applications. Includes onboarding procedures for new employees, role change procedures, and offboarding procedures that ensure terminated employees lose access immediately and completely.
Patch Management
Step-by-step procedures for identifying, testing, approving, and deploying security patches across your environment. Includes patch classification criteria, testing requirements, deployment schedules, rollback procedures, and emergency patch procedures for critical vulnerabilities.
Backup and Recovery
Procedures for performing regular backups, verifying backup integrity, storing backups securely, and restoring data when needed. Includes backup schedules, retention policies, testing procedures, and step-by-step recovery instructions for different failure scenarios.
Incident Response
Detailed procedures for detecting, classifying, escalating, containing, eradicating, and recovering from security incidents. Includes specific playbooks for common incident types such as ransomware, phishing compromise, data breach, and insider threat. Each playbook provides step-by-step instructions with decision points, escalation criteria, and communication templates.
Vulnerability Scanning
Procedures for conducting regular vulnerability scans, analyzing results, prioritizing findings, and tracking remediation. Includes scan configuration guidelines, scheduling requirements, reporting templates, and procedures for handling critical vulnerability discoveries.
Change Management
Procedures for requesting, documenting, reviewing, approving, implementing, and verifying changes to systems and infrastructure. Includes change classification criteria, approval workflows, testing requirements, rollback procedures, and emergency change procedures.
Firewall Rule Management
Procedures for requesting, reviewing, implementing, and auditing firewall rules. Includes rule request forms, approval workflows, implementation steps, testing procedures, and periodic rule review procedures to identify and remove stale or unnecessary rules.
Log Review and Monitoring
Procedures for reviewing security logs, identifying anomalies, investigating alerts, and escalating potential incidents. Includes log source identification, review schedules, alert triage procedures, and documentation requirements.
Access Review
Procedures for conducting periodic reviews of user access rights to ensure compliance with least privilege principles. Includes review schedules, certification workflows, remediation procedures for excessive access, and documentation requirements.
Security Awareness Training Administration
Procedures for planning, scheduling, delivering, and tracking security awareness training across the organization. Includes training content development, delivery methods, attendance tracking, assessment procedures, and procedures for managing employees who fail training assessments.
Physical Security Operations
Procedures for managing physical access controls, visitor management, equipment disposal, and physical security inspections. Includes procedures for issuing and revoking access badges, escorting visitors, disposing of sensitive equipment, and conducting physical security assessments.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Step-by-step procedures for activating and executing business continuity and disaster recovery plans. Includes notification procedures, team assembly, system recovery steps, communication procedures, and procedures for returning to normal operations.
SOP Development Process
Process Discovery: We work with your team to understand how critical security tasks are currently performed. We observe current workflows, interview team members, and document existing practices, whether formal or informal.
Gap Analysis: We compare current practices against compliance requirements, industry best practices, and your security policies to identify gaps and areas for improvement.
SOP Drafting: We develop detailed, step-by-step procedures that are specific to your environment, tools, and team. Each SOP includes purpose, scope, roles and responsibilities, prerequisites, detailed steps, verification points, and references to related policies and procedures.
Review and Validation: We review each SOP with the team members who will execute it to ensure accuracy, completeness, and practicality. We walk through each procedure step by step and make revisions based on feedback.
Implementation: We help you deploy SOPs to your team, including training on new procedures and establishing tracking mechanisms to ensure procedures are followed.
Continuous Improvement: We establish a review schedule and feedback mechanism to ensure SOPs remain current and are continuously improved based on operational experience and changing requirements.
SOP Format and Quality Standards
Our SOPs follow consistent formatting standards that make them easy to use in the field:
- Clear, numbered steps that can be followed sequentially
- Decision points and branching logic clearly identified
- Screenshots and diagrams where applicable
- Roles and responsibilities clearly defined for each step
- Verification checkpoints to confirm correct completion
- References to related policies, procedures, and documentation
- Version control with revision history
- Approval signatures and effective dates
Build Operational Excellence Today
Standard operating procedures are the foundation of consistent, reliable security operations. Petronella Technology Group develops the SOPs your team needs to perform critical security tasks with confidence and consistency.
Contact us today at 919-348-4912 to discuss your SOP development needs. We will help you document, standardize, and improve the security procedures that protect your business every day.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are SOPs different from policies?
How many SOPs does a typical organization need?
How often should SOPs be updated?
Can you create SOPs for specific tools and platforms we use?
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Contact Petronella Technology Group for a free consultation.
Schedule Your Free AssessmentOr call 919-348-4912
Why Choose Petronella Technology Group
Petronella Technology Group has been a trusted IT and cybersecurity partner for businesses across Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, Apex, and the Research Triangle since 2002. Led by CEO Craig Petronella, an NC Licensed Digital Forensics Examiner (License# 604180-DFE), CMMC Certified Registered Practitioner, Cybersecurity Expert Witness, Hyperledger Certified, and MIT-certified professional in cybersecurity, AI, blockchain, and compliance, PTG brings deep expertise to every engagement.
With BBB accreditation since 2003 and more than 2,500 businesses served, PTG has the experience and track record to deliver results. Craig Petronella is an Amazon number-one best-selling author of books including "How HIPAA Can Crush Your Medical Practice," "How Hackers Can Crush Your Law Firm," and "The Ultimate Guide To CMMC." He has been featured on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and WRAL, and serves as an expert witness for law firms in cybercrime and compliance cases.
PTG holds certifications including CCNA, MCNS, Microsoft Cloud Essentials, and specializes in CMMC 2.0, NIST 800-171/172/173, HIPAA, FTC Safeguards, SOC 2 Type II, PCI DSS, GDPR, CCPA, and ISO 27001 compliance. Our forensic specialties include endpoint and networking cybercrime investigation, data breach forensics, ransomware analysis, data exfiltration investigation, cryptocurrency and blockchain analysis, and SIM swap fraud investigation.
Our Approach to Cybersecurity
At Petronella Technology Group, cybersecurity is not just about installing antivirus software or setting up a firewall. We take a comprehensive, layered approach to security that addresses people, processes, and technology. Our methodology is built on industry-standard frameworks including NIST Cybersecurity Framework, CIS Controls, and MITRE ATT&CK, ensuring that your security program is aligned with the same standards used by Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. Every engagement begins with a thorough assessment of your current security posture, followed by a prioritized remediation roadmap that addresses your most critical risks first.
Our security operations team provides continuous monitoring through our Security Information and Event Management platform, which correlates events across your entire environment to detect threats in real time. When a potential threat is identified, our analysts investigate and respond immediately, often containing threats before they can cause damage. This proactive approach dramatically reduces the risk of successful cyberattacks and provides the rapid response capability that is essential in today's threat landscape.
We believe that employee awareness is one of the most important layers of defense. Human error remains the leading cause of data breaches, and no amount of technology can fully compensate for untrained employees. PTG provides comprehensive security awareness training programs that educate your team about phishing, social engineering, password security, data handling, and incident reporting. Our training programs include simulated phishing campaigns that test employee readiness and identify areas where additional education is needed, helping organizations build a strong security culture from the ground up.
Beyond prevention, PTG prepares organizations for the reality that breaches can occur despite the best defenses. Our incident response planning services help businesses develop, document, and test response procedures so that when an incident does occur, your team knows exactly what to do. From tabletop exercises to full incident simulations, we ensure that your organization is prepared to respond quickly and effectively, minimizing damage, preserving evidence, and meeting all regulatory notification requirements within required timeframes.
The PTG Compliance Process
Achieving and maintaining regulatory compliance requires a structured, repeatable process. PTG has developed a proven compliance methodology refined over more than two decades of helping businesses navigate complex regulatory requirements. Our process begins with a comprehensive gap assessment that evaluates your current policies, procedures, and technical controls against the specific requirements of your target framework. This assessment identifies exactly where your organization stands and what needs to be done to achieve compliance.
Following the gap assessment, PTG develops a prioritized remediation roadmap that outlines every action item needed to close identified gaps. We categorize items by risk level and effort required, allowing organizations to address the most critical deficiencies first while planning for longer-term improvements. Our consultants work alongside your team to implement technical controls, develop required policies and procedures, create employee training programs, and establish the documentation and evidence collection processes needed to demonstrate compliance during audits and assessments.
Compliance is not a one-time project but an ongoing commitment. Regulations evolve, threats change, and business environments shift. PTG provides continuous compliance monitoring services that track your compliance status in real time, alert you to emerging gaps, and ensure that your security controls remain effective. We conduct regular internal audits, update policies as regulations change, and prepare your organization for external audits or assessments. Our goal is to make compliance a natural part of your business operations rather than a periodic scramble to meet audit deadlines.
For organizations subject to multiple compliance frameworks, PTG takes a unified approach that maps overlapping requirements across frameworks. Rather than implementing separate programs for each regulation, we build a comprehensive security and compliance program that satisfies multiple requirements simultaneously. This integrated approach reduces costs, eliminates redundant processes, and provides a clearer picture of your overall security and compliance posture, making it easier to manage ongoing obligations and demonstrate compliance to auditors, clients, and business partners.
Ready to Get Started?
Contact Petronella Technology Group today for a free consultation. Serving Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and the Research Triangle since 2002.
919-348-4912 Schedule a Free Consultation5540 Centerview Dr., Suite 200, Raleigh, NC 27606