The Leeds-based cyber security consultancy, Pentest People, is planning further expansion following its second consecutive year of rapid business growth. This saw revenues increasing by 65%, and headcount increased by 35%.

Organisations commission Pentest People’s cybersecurity experts to test their websites, applications and IT systems for any weaknesses that could allow cybercriminals to steal information, damage IT systems, or hold data to ransom.

The company employs a number of CHECK team leaders, who have penetration testing qualifications and experience approved by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

The company, led by technical director, Gavin Watson, and sales director, Anthony Harvey, attributes its rapid growth to its continuous development of new threat assessment, consultancy, and remediation services, in response to increasing cybersecurity risks that affect organisations of all sizes.

Gavin Watson shared:

“Over the past twelve months Pentest People has continued to grow its client base and expand its range of services, including the addition of cyber incident response, remote-working security assessments, dark web monitoring and zero-day exploit scanning, allowing us to detect, prevent, and remediate the most common cyber risks.”

Gavin Watson, Sales Director

Co-founder, Andrew Mason commented:

“To support this expansion, we have increased our headcount by 35%, moved into a larger office at the Coach Works in Leeds, opened a second office close to GCHQ at Hub8 Cheltenham and launched an apprentice and graduate recruitment and training programme. We’ve hired thirteen women to join our team in the past year and we’re actively recruiting more female consultants.”

Pentest People now offers a broader range of on-site and online services to clients including:

• Penetration Testing as a Service provided via the company’s Secure Portal
• Ransomware defence assessment
• Remote-working security assessment
• Zero-day exploit response to alert clients to fresh vulnerabilities
• Dark web monitoring to proactively search for evidence of stolen data
• Social engineering assessment to identify where staff education is required
• Phishing email assessment
• Firewall ruleset reviews
• VPN configuration assessment
• Load testing to identify where third-party service and servers are impacting website user experience
• Red Team assessment to proactively test organisations’ abilities to withstand targeted cyber attacks

Commenting on the company’s new service development, Gavin Watson, technical director, Pentest People added:

“Our initial mission was to provide remote and on-site assessments to uncover vulnerabilities in systems, processes and employee practices that expose companies to cyber attacks. As Pentest People’s team has expanded, we’ve added rapid response services to help clients to fix critical issues resulting from newly discovered vulnerabilities and zero-day exploits. Within hours of any new exploits becoming public knowledge, our cyber security experts scan clients’ systems and provide remediation advice if they are found to be vulnerable.”

The company’s successes have not gone unnoticed and it was recently listed among the Leeds Tech Climbers of inspiring technology companies that are innovating to meet demand and are set for growth and it has been shortlisted for the Prolific North Tech Company of the Year award. Pentest People has also been invited to attend the UK Government’s CYBERUK 2022 event taking place at the International Conference Centre, in Newport, Wales, on 10^th – 11^th May.