Security for UK sectors and their regulators

Financial services, fintech & insurance

UK financial services firms work under some of the most demanding security expectations anywhere. The FCA and PRA's operational resilience rules ask firms to identify important business services and stay within impact tolerances when disruption hits. Open banking puts sensitive APIs in the hands of third parties by design. Card payments bring PCI DSS. Larger firms may also take part in intelligence-led testing schemes such as CBEST.

• Open banking and partner API authorisation testing
• Payment, lending and onboarding workflow abuse testing
• Mobile banking app testing against OWASP MASVS
• Scenario testing that supports operational resilience self-assessments
• 24/7 SOC monitoring with clear incident timelines for regulators

API penetration testing

SaaS & technology

For UK software companies, security is part of every sale. Enterprise and public-sector buyers send detailed questionnaires, ask for ISO 27001 certificates and Cyber Essentials, and increasingly want SOC 2 when you sell into the US. The biggest technical risk is usually tenant isolation: can one customer reach another's data?

• Multi-tenant and role-based access control testing
• ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials and SOC 2 readiness with audit-ready pentests
• AWS London, Azure UK South and GCP security reviews
• AI feature and LLM integration testing
• Attestation letters for security questionnaires and tenders

Compliance & audit readiness

Healthcare, NHS suppliers & life sciences

Ransomware attacks on UK health providers and their suppliers have shown how quickly a cyber incident can disrupt patient care. Organisations with access to NHS patient data or systems must complete the Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT), and special category health data carries extra obligations under UK GDPR.

• Patient portal, clinical system integration and telehealth testing
• Penetration testing and evidence to support DSPT submissions
• Ransomware resilience, segmentation and backup testing
• Incident response that supports 72-hour ICO reporting decisions

Incident response & forensics

Retail, e-commerce & hospitality

UK retailers have faced high-profile attacks that disrupted online ordering, stores and supply chains for weeks. Attackers target help desks and identity systems as well as websites: card-skimming scripts, account takeover, gift card and loyalty fraud, and social engineering of IT support.

• Checkout, pricing, promotion and loyalty logic testing
• PCI DSS scope reduction, Requirement 11 testing and payment page integrity
• Help-desk social engineering and identity attack resilience
• Bot and API abuse reviews for peak trading periods

Identity threat detection & response

Manufacturing, logistics & energy

For UK manufacturers and logistics firms, downtime is the main risk. Converged IT and OT networks, legacy plant systems and remote vendor access give attackers room to move. Operators of essential services in energy and transport also have duties under the NIS Regulations, which the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill is set to extend.

• IT/OT segmentation and remote-access testing
• Active Directory and internal network attack paths
• 24/7 NOC and SOC cover for plants, depots and offices
• Patch management planned around production windows

Network & infrastructure testing

Public sector suppliers, education & charities

Schools, universities, housing associations and charities hold large amounts of personal data, often on tight budgets. Suppliers bidding for central government contracts that involve personal data usually need Cyber Essentials. Testing of public-sector systems themselves may require an NCSC CHECK provider. We'll tell you at scoping if that applies.

• Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus readiness
• Student, tenant and donor portal application testing
• Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace security reviews
• Security awareness training and phishing simulation

Cyber Essentials vs penetration testing