IT support · Pittsburgh, PA
Managed IT for Pittsburgh's old industries and new ones
Pittsburgh Support keeps the computers, cloud accounts, networks and security of small and mid-sized organizations around Western Pennsylvania in working order, from the machine shop to the startup.
A regional economy that rebuilt itself, and what that means for IT
Pittsburgh's story is well known: the mills closed, and over the following decades the region rebuilt around health care, universities, finance and technology. UPMC grew into Pennsylvania's largest private employer, Highmark Health and Allegheny Health Network built a second large system, and PNC and BNY kept major operations downtown. Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh turned Oakland into a research engine whose spinouts now fill offices in the Strip District, Lawrenceville and East Liberty, along the stretch locals call Robotics Row.
The older economy never fully left. Manufacturers still run plants along the rivers and out toward Beaver, Westmoreland and Washington counties, many of them supplying aerospace, defense and industrial customers. The Marcellus Shale brought natural-gas producers like EQT downtown and a cluster of energy and engineering firms around Southpointe in Canonsburg. Those businesses deal with shop floors, field sites and contracts that increasingly come with cybersecurity clauses attached.
Then there's the terrain. Three rivers, steep hills, tunnels and bridges shape how people get around, and plenty of companies split staff between a city office, a suburban site in Cranberry or Robinson, and people working from home. That makes remote management, solid VPN or cloud access, and consistent security across every location more practical here than one big server room.
What we take off your plate
Managed IT and help desk
Your staff send IT problems to one place and get answers from people who know your systems.
More →Cybersecurity
For most small and mid-sized organizations, attacks arrive through email and stolen passwords rather than anything exotic.
More →Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and cloud
We administer Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace end to end: accounts, licensing, shared mailboxes, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive or shared drives, plus the conditional…
More →Networks, Wi-Fi and firewalls
We design and manage business firewalls, switches and Wi-Fi for offices, clinics and production floors.
More →Backup and disaster recovery
We back up servers, critical workstations and cloud data such as Microsoft 365 mailboxes and SharePoint to encrypted storage away from your site, with versioned or…
More →Compliance support: CMMC, HIPAA, PCI and more
We help organizations prepare for the requirements their contracts and regulators bring: CMMC and NIST SP 800-171 readiness for defense suppliers, HIPAA for practices…
More →A fabrication shop in the Mon Valley and a robotics startup in Lawrenceville look like they have nothing in common. In IT terms they share more than you'd expect. Both run equipment controlled by computers that are hard to update. Both hold designs, drawings or code a competitor would love to see. And both usually have one overworked person who became the IT department by accident.
We take that job off their plate. Pittsburgh Support provides help desk support for your staff, monitors and patches every machine, sets up security that matches the data you actually hold, and makes sure your files can be restored when something goes wrong. The aim is to make IT predictable, so the people you hired to build, treat, design or sell can spend their time doing that.
Who we work with
Manufacturers and defense suppliers
Machine shops, fabricators and component makers that supply defense primes are now seeing CMMC requirements written into contracts. We help them find where controlled information lives, segment shop-floor systems from office networks, and work through NIST SP 800-171 gaps ahead of an assessment.
Energy, engineering and environmental firms
Companies around Southpointe and downtown share large CAD and GIS files, send staff to well pads and field sites, and work with operators who expect secure handling of project data. We set up file access that works from a truck, protect laptops that travel, and back up project archives properly.
Medical and dental practices
Independent practices across the South Hills, the North Hills and the eastern suburbs refer patients into UPMC and AHN but carry their own HIPAA obligations. We handle device encryption, access controls, secure email, and the risk analysis the HIPAA Security Rule expects every covered entity to perform.
University spinouts and software startups
Founders coming out of CMU and Pitt need company-owned accounts, sensible access controls and protected source code long before they think of hiring IT. We set up the foundation early, so investor security questions and the first enterprise customer's review aren't a scramble.
Our process
Office and shop floor alike
We look at production machines, cameras and controllers as part of the network, not as someone else's problem.
Patch on your schedule
Updates are planned around shifts, production runs and clinic hours, so maintenance never surprises the people doing the work.
Find the sensitive data
Before buying any security tool, we figure out where your drawings, patient records or controlled information actually sit.
Report in plain terms
You get short, regular summaries of what changed and what still needs a decision, without a wall of acronyms.
Questions Pittsburgh businesses ask us
Where should a manufacturer that supplies defense contractors start with CMMC?
Start by identifying whether you handle Federal Contract Information, Controlled Unclassified Information, or both, and where that data lives in email, file shares and on the shop floor. From there we run a gap assessment against NIST SP 800-171, help you post an honest score where your contracts require it, and work through a remediation plan. We support readiness; the formal assessment itself is done by an authorized third party where your level requires one.
Can shop-floor machines running old versions of Windows be secured?
Often they can't be upgraded without breaking the equipment vendor's support, so we protect them from the outside instead. That means putting them on their own network segment, blocking internet access they don't need, controlling how files get on and off them, and watching that segment for unusual traffic.
What should a CMU or Pitt spinout set up before raising money or hiring?
Company-owned email and cloud accounts rather than personal ones, MFA everywhere, a password manager, managed laptops, and clear ownership of code repositories and domains. Getting those right early avoids messy cleanups when an investor or a large customer starts asking security questions.
Can you manage a business with sites in the city, Cranberry and the South Hills?
Yes. Most of our work is done remotely through monitoring and management tools, so the rivers and tunnels between locations don't matter much. We standardize security settings, networking and backups across every site so a problem at one location doesn't become a different problem at each.
Does an independent practice that refers into a large health system still need its own HIPAA program?
Yes. Each covered entity is responsible for its own compliance, including a documented security risk analysis, safeguards for electronic patient information, and business associate agreements with its vendors. A hospital's program doesn't extend to a separate practice, even one that works closely with it.
Get a straight read on your IT
Call (412) 557-4669 or email support@pittsburghsupport.com with a little about your business and what's not working. We'll set up a conversation about where to start.