Enterprise-Grade Cybersecurity for regulated small businesses.

We bridge the gap between strict compliance and your real-world budget.

Clear-Cut Risk Assessment

We start with a diagnosis of your actual risks before offering a solution. You get a comprehensive report that shows you the specific threats and their quantifiable impact on your business.

Specialized, Seamless Partnership

We concentrate on security strategy only, working alongside your existing MSP or IT team to fill security gaps and strengthen your entire environment.

Actionable, Affordable Roadmap

Walk away with a phased, step-by-step plan based on your risk, resources, and compliance needs. Know exactly what matters, why it matters, and how to implement it.

Our Methodology

Your MSP Keeps You Running. We Keep You Secure.

Your MSP or IT Team is your general practitioner. They keep your systems healthy and running. But most MSPs only provide baseline security tools, not the specialized risk analysis and strategy modern threats require.

That’s where Smoky Mountains Cybersecurity comes in.

Instead of treating symptoms with tools, we diagnose the root causes: how your people work, how data moves through your organization, and where attackers are most likely to succeed.

From there, we give you a practical plan to strengthen your defenses that fits how your team actually works and avoids unnecessary complexity or spending.

We don’t replace your IT team. We give them the roadmap they need to succeed.

Our Six-Domain Security Framework

To understand your true risk, we evaluate your business across six core security domains. This structured approach gives you a clear picture of where you’re strong, where gaps exist, and which improvements will have the greatest impact.

Every recommendation is mapped to CIS and NIST standards and prioritized by risk, so you know exactly what to focus on first. Whether you need to meet HIPAA, PCI-DSS, WISP, or cyber insurance requirements, you’ll have realistic steps based on how your business operates.

Physical Security

Protect your hardware, facilities, and infrastructure from unauthorized physical access and environmental threats.

Endpoint Protection

Keep company laptops, phones, and workstations from becoming entry points for malware, data loss, or credential theft.

Network Protection

Safeguard your internal network so business systems remain available, monitored, and protected from unauthorized intrusion.

Data Access Controls

Limit exposure by ensuring only the right people can view, modify, or export sensitive financial and customer data.

Disaster Recovery

Maintain business continuity with tested plans to restore systems and data after ransomware, outages, or unexpected disruptions.

Human Risk Management

Reduce financial and operational risk by training employees to recognize scams, social engineering, and fraud attempts.

After the Assessment

Ongoing vCISO Partnership

A roadmap only works if it gets implemented correctly. For businesses in regulated industries (HIPAA, CMMC, FINRA), security is an ongoing requirement.

Once your assessment is complete, we don’t disappear. We can stay on as your fractional security officer (vCISO) to bridge the gap between your compliance requirements and your IT team’s capabilities.

We can help you:

Oversee Remediation

We guide your IT providers to ensure every security fix is implemented correctly, on time, and without disrupting your business operations.

Maintain Compliance

We keep your policies updated and documentation audit-ready year-round, so you never have to scramble when a regulator calls.

Manage Vendors

We act as your technical advocate to vet new tools and cut through sales jargon, ensuring you only pay for what you actually need.

Industries Served

Helping Small Businesses from California to East Tennessee

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Legal

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Finance & Accounting

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Healthcare

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Professional Services

About Us

I’m Seth Bagdanov, founder of Smoky Mountains Cybersecurity. Before launching this business, I spent over a decade in the trenches of small-business IT, supporting everyone from agriculture companies in Central California to professional services firms across five time zones worldwide. I saw firsthand how overwhelmed leaders felt when trying to understand cybersecurity, especially when every vendor pushed a different “must-have” product or expensive bundled package.

What struck me wasn’t a lack of effort. It was a lack of direction. Businesses were getting sales pitches, not strategy.

Most leaders didn’t need a bigger budget or a fancier firewall. They needed clear, structured confidence. They needed someone who understood how they function to filter out the noise, simplify decisions, and reduce real risk.

So in 2024, I built Smoky Mountains Cybersecurity around a different idea: give small businesses the specialized guidance normally reserved for enterprise security teams, but delivered in a way that fits their size and resources. Today, I work directly with business owners, office managers, IT staff, and MSPs to develop security programs that are grounded in operational reality instead of flashy sales decks.

Who We’re NOT For

Is Smoky Mountains Cybersecurity Right For You?

We are specialized partners, not general IT providers. Our focus is helping non-technical leaders turn cybersecurity from an overwhelming problem into a competitive business advantage using the tools and team you already have.