How time flies! We’re officially celebrating a whole decade of Equilibrium Security. In 2012, Anish Chauhan founded Equilibrium, with the clear aim of providing trusted expertise to help businesses thrive, succeed, and remain secure.
Fast-forward to 2022, we’re proud to say that over the years we’ve developed many loyal partnerships with firms across the UK and Europe. But we also continue to provide expert guidance to many clients who’ve been there since day one!
This is testament to our fantastic team, and their dedication to putting your needs at the front and centre of our core mission. Our approach has always been simple. Our client’s success is our success.
When looking for a dependable security partner that will go the extra mile, we hope this ethos means you’ll think of us first… for many years to come!
Celebrating 10 years: A message from our Founder and Director
In some ways I can't remember what it was like to not be running Equilibrium. It's become such a key part of my life but along with the good times and the somewhat tougher times, one thing that's remained a constant is my passion and excitement for what's round the corner. Our 10th Anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on the how far we've come, the team we have built and of course the amazing clients we look forward to each new engagement with. Here's to the next 10!
A lot can happen in a decade
Over the past 10 years, the world has evolved at a break-neck speed. In 2012, we would never have believed a global pandemic would bring the whole world to a standstill, a reality TV star would become the 45th president of the United States, or that Great Britain would leave the European Union. But a lot can happen in a decade!
The same thing goes in the world of Cyber Security. Back when Equilibrium was in its infancy, the online sphere was a very different space. Back in the early days, businesses were shocked to hear about high profile breaches, but since then there has been a huge shift in consumer perception. It’s now the case of ‘when, not if’ they’ll be hacked.
Another change we’ve seen is that we should no longer rely on our perimeter defences. No matter how tightly bolted your firewall is, hackers will eventually find a way to pick the lock.
The questions are:
- Do you have a defence in depth strategy, or is your perimeter security a single point of failure?
- If your perimeter was breached, how many layers protect your network ‘crown jewels’?
10 years in the security industry has been one heck of a ride! From the from the infamous ransomware attack WannaCry in 2017, to the Equifax hack which exposed 150 million data records, it’s safe to say there hasn’t been a dull moment.
Whilst it’s been a decade of devastating cyber breaches, all is not lost! With every new attack to hit the headline, there was a ‘lessons learned’ to take away from it.
As the sophistication and capabilities of cyber-criminals grew, so did our approach to strengthening security.
We fought back! We don’t back down that easily.
Let’s go back to the beginning
Why do we exist?
Equilibrium aspires to be the UK’s most esteemed and trusted security partner. We exist to provide trusted guidance to help brands thrive, succeed, and remain secure.
We believe that every brand should have complete trust in their approach to security.
Which is why we’re always on hand to shed light on your darkest security concerns and be your guiding star on your path to cyber resilience.
Why was Equilibrium founded?
After 15 years in the industry, Equilibrium was founded by Anish Chauhan in September of 2012. The company was initially formed in a bid to challenge the approach taken by large enterprises to secure their customer’s networks.
The industry was, and still is, vendor led. By being vendor agnostic and taking an approach in-line with customer challenges rather than led by an external agenda, the business quickly grew to achieve a strong reputation in the security industry.
A few years after this Equilibrium diversified its capabilities through starting, investing in and growing a penetration testing team.
In recent years we’ve developed a testing offering that continues to challenge the norm of penetration testing, using a variety of testing techniques that serves customers with real world testing scenarios that test genuine concerns around the exploitability of hosts, networks and applications.
A timeline of Equilibrium Security
Let’s take a few moments to reflect on our key memories and milestones from the past decade!
September 2012
Equilibrium Security Services Ltd was founded by Anish Chauhan.
2012: Gaining our first major client
In the form of a major large NHS Trust in the Midlands; an organisation we still work with closely today.
2013: Ransomware who?
During the early days of Equilibrium, Anish hosted educational talks and recalls asking, ‘has anyone heard of ransomware’, only 1 or 2 hands went up out of a possible 50! How times change.
2015: New Office in Brindley Place
Our first office was in the middle of Brindley Place in Birmingham, it was only supposed to hold 2 people – yet we crammed our then team of 4 in.
2016: We became a Cyber Essentials Certification Body
Having always seen certifications and regulations either being too sector specific or too wide ranging, it was refreshing to see IASME launch Cyber Essentials. Aimed at SME’s, it gave them a good set of common-sense actions to follow and so naturally we became a Certification Body and our relationship has continued since then.
2017: Equilibrium featured in the New Statesman Magazine
In early 2017 we had an article featured in The New Statesman’s Monthly Cyber Security magazine. We were invited down to the Houses of Parliament for the launch event, but unfortunately due to adverse weather conditions we were unable to attend.
2017: The infamous WannaCry Ransomware attack
On Friday 12th May 2017 a strain of ransomware called WannaCry took the world by storm, affecting more than 500,000 systems globally.
For anyone who works in the Cyber Security industry, this astounding event will be something which sticks with you for many years to come. Here at Equilibrium, we were busy assisting customers with the fallout of the attack, offering guidance, joining radio interviews, and doing all we could to offer our Cyber Security expertise in a time of much uncertainty and panic.
2018: We became a CREST Accredited Penetration Testing Company
We spent a long time getting our process right to be able to deliver our Penetration Testing services effectively. Like most of what we do, we’re not happy doing it until we can do it well!
So, we were bowled over to gain CREST accredited status at the first time of trying.
2020: The global pandemic
Sorry, I know we all want to forget about lockdowns and wearing masks, but we can’t have a timeline of the decade without mentioning the pandemic!
As many of you will agree, it was one of the most notable events of the last 10 years. As lockdown struck in March 2020, a wave of uncertainty struck families, and businesses across the globe.
Equilibrium was no different, we were equally concerned about the future longevity of the business. However, against the backdrop of increased risk due to home working, and a rise in Covid19 themed attacks, businesses were keen to invest in strengthening their security strategy. This led on to us having one of our busiest years to date.
2021: The National Cyber Security Show
As born and bred Birmingham-based Cyber Security experts, Equilibrium Security were extremely excited to be one of the founding partners at the National Cyber Security Show in the NEC.
2021: We reached £1 million turnover!
2021 was the first-year team Equilibrium reached £1 million turnover. As a result of changing the strategic direction of the business and the focus of our services, we had a hugely successful financial year. This was a memorable milestone for us! Credit to our incredible team for making this possible.
2022: We developed our in-house Security Operations Centre (SOC)
After investing heavily in growing our technical team, this year we officially launched our first in-house Security Operations Centre Service.
2022: Our rebrand and new website launch!
Our brand refresh was a long time coming! For a good while, we felt our previous website and brand identity just didn’t reflect our ethos as a business, celebrate our team or speak to directly to our customers pain points.
So, after months of planning and hard work behind the scenes from Marketing and Operations Manager Amelia Frizzell, in April 2022 our shiny new website was launched.
2022: Further development of our Penetration Testing services
Ongoing innovation of our service offerings has always been at the top of our agenda. This year, our Penetration Testing service has taken a new direction. When understanding cyber-risk, as security experts we have a duty to provide our customers with the big picture.
Which is why this year we have taken a new approach to security testing, rather than focussing on one element like your network perimeter, we use real-life attack scenarios to mimic the actions and motives of hackers. This threat-centric approach to security testing helps provide a more holistic insight into your cyber-resilience. Find out more.
2022 present day: Equilibrium turns 10!
Equilibrium celebrates our 10th birthday, what a decade it has been!
A moment of thanks, and looking to the future
Our people are at the heart of everything we do. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the superstar team that make Equilibrium a success. Their drive, relentless hard work, and dedication to achieving our companies mission does not go unnoticed. Kudos to the team for making it all possible!
We would also like to take a moment to thank the many customers and partners who we have supported and collaborated with over the years. Thank you for choosing team Equilibrium! We want to express how much we appreciate your business. We look forward to continuing our trusted security partnerships for many years to come.
Looking ahead to the future, Equilibrium has plans for growth of our team, development of our services and continuing to strive towards achieving our company vision of becoming ‘the UK’s most esteemed and trusted security partner’.
Although this may sound rather ambitious for a company of our size, we believe that by having laser-focus on delivering our company mission statement, our reputation as an esteemed and trusted security partner will be a natural by-product of building strong security partnerships with our clients.
Here’s to the next 10!
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