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

The solution provider says its NWN Cybersecurity offering combines new in-house managed security services with MDR (managed detection and response) delivered through a partnership with Arctic Wolf.

NWN announced the launch Wednesday of a suite of managed security services with the debut of its new NWN Cybersecurity offering, 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 its NWN Cybersecurity offering 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 debut of the offering follows the announcement in late March at RSAC 2026 that NWN had been chosen as a launch partner for Arctic Wolf’s new Aurora Superintelligence Platform, which leverages the vendor’s vast dataset and deploys swarms of AI agents to handle key security operations tasks.

The MDR offering delivered to customers through NWN’s partnership with Arctic Wolf will provide 24/7 agentic-enhanced protection to customers including continuous detection, mitigation and resolution of threats and attacks, according to NWN.

Ultimately, NWN Cybersecurity will deliver “a full, end-to-end security solution that's all now integrated natively to security vendors like Arctic Wolf,” Sullivan said.

Other key vendor partnerships that are helping to drive the NWN Cybersecurity offering include major longtime NWN partner Cisco Systems along with cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks, which has been an NWN partner for more than three years, according to the company.

Key enhancements for NWN’s Experience Management Platform include that the platform is now “integrating deeper into Palo [Alto Networks], Cisco and Arctic Wolf and adding AI capabilities in security—specifically with our environment and Arctic Wolf’s new platform,” Sullivan said.

Meanwhile, as part of the NWN Cybersecurity launch, the company is unveiling 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.

Additionally, 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.

Strong Traction In Security

The cybersecurity expansion for NWN comes as the solution provider has already been doubling its security business during each of the past three years, according to Sullivan.

In other words, NWN has seen “great progress” in its delivery of cyber defense solutions even prior to the launch of NWN Cybersecurity, and that should only accelerate going forward, he said.

“Part of that [traction] is the market growth—but we're growing dramatically faster at security than the marketplace is,” Sullivan said.

All in all, with NWN doubling down on cybersecurity with the debut of its new offering, “we're getting closer with our clients to wrap all these solutions together so you can have a fully managed IT environment, inclusive of all the [necessary] security,” he said.

The introduction of NWN Cybersecurity also follows the recent launch of the solution provider’s Intelligent Connectivity offering. The Network as a Service offering stitches together HPE Mist and NWN’s Experience Management Platform into a single operating model, according to the company.