69. CovertSwarm

Founder: Anders Reeves
Year founded: 2020
Website: covertswarm.com

You deserved to be hacked. That’s according to CovertSwarm – a specialist red team (that is authorised ethical hackers and penetration testers) that are seeking to change the way businesses outpace online threats and risks of data breaches. 

For the 39% of UK businesses that have already been hacked in 2022, this may sound counterintuitive. But don’t worry, despite claiming to be its “client’s worst nightmare”, CovertSwarm is on your side.

Founded by Anders Reeves in 2020, the cybersecurity startup is on a mission to constantly compromise its clients. It does this to help them identify and fix their weaknesses – and the startup is prepared to use every weapon in its arsenal to do so. 

Prior to founding CovertSwarm, Reeves had worked in multiple global enterprises, including Sony, Moonpig, and Photobox. He also operated as an MSSP (Managed Security Service Provider) that serviced hundreds of SMEs around the world. 

While doing so, he recognised that all of those businesses had been deploying exactly the same tactics to prove they were secure against cyber attacks. That included running point-in-time and ad hoc security testing – primarily through penetration testing and red teaming – yet they all continued to suffer cyber breaches. 

As a result, CovertSwarm was built to provide a service that would radically redefine how enterprise security risks are discovered, with the business existing to continually outpace the cyber threats faced by organisations in the modern world.

CovertSwarm’s red teaming service is unique in several ways. It’s subscription-based, which means that organisations can access a team of ethical hackers on an ongoing basis. This is in contrast to traditional red teaming engagements, which are typically one-off projects. CovertSwarm uses a variety of innovative techniques to simulate real-world attacks too, including social engineering and physical security assessments. 

Finally, unlike other ethical hacking services, CovertSwarm offers its clients real-time insights into the attack and its impact on the organisation’s security posture, through its unique proprietary platform.

Clearly, CovertSwarm’s unique approach to cybersecurity works. Despite being founded in 2020, the startup has quickly become a leading provider of red-teaming services, with its clients including one of the top ten largest American brands and one of the top five global health insurers – but it’s not stopping there. 

The cybersecurity startup aims to be the global leader in red team services and platform provision within the next five years. And, if the company’s promising seed funding and 120% growth in the last year is anything to go by, this is definitely something CovertSwarm will be able to hack.