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Secure Ideas, like most startups, spends a lot of their time anticipating the competition’s next move. The caveat is that Secure Ideas has two sets of competitors. Secure Ideas doesn’t just need to worry about other cyber-security companies; they need to worry about the hordes of malicious hackers intent on wrecking havoc on your business. So then, what’s the best way to beat them? Hire even better hackers, those with skills and mindset to be “professionally evil."
Chris Franks tells how Secure Ideas was born out of “a tremendous opportunity for really good hackers to in the world to come together and deliver their services in a really professional and thorough way.”
Founded in 2010, Secure Ideas specializes in preventing businesses from falling prey to predatory hackers. This is done through preventative, defensive, and pre-approved vulnerability testing to educate companies about their security posture and security flaws. Essentially, a company can hire Secure Ideas to try and hack into their website and then tell them how they did it so the bad guys can’t. In the cyber-security business this is called “Penetration Testing," and the geeks at Secure Ideas love doing these types of tests.
“We breach security in various ways, and then we teach companies how we did it and how they can fix it that makes sense for their business operations, so that the bad guys can’t do it,” said COO Lara Dawson.
For her team this type of testing is “like a game to them." Secure Ideas also offers non-invasive consulting services such as security architecture reviews, general security consulting, education, and training.
This is how being “Professionally Evil” benefits the clients of Secure Ideas: “We have to be as talented as the bad guys at being able to break in, but we also have to be professional about doing it. We have a very strong code of ethics," Dawson said.
So how do they stay ahead of said bad guys? Well, the minds at Secure Ideas are invested in research and development, which in the cyber-security world can mean finding “Zero-Day Vulnerabilities” (previously unknown vulnerabilities) before anybody else can.
The nature of the work done at Secure Ideas has drawn in such high level talent that they haven’t had to spend a day headhunting in the history of their company. It is the computer nerd’s dream, getting paid to hack in ways that are illegal in all other circumstances. One might liken it to a speed junky given a fast car and full amnesty from speeding tickets to test the nation’s highways for “vulnerablities." And they do love it.
Secure Ideas is a tight knit group of nine, led by CEO Kevin Johnson. It has been said of Kevin that, given credentials to your website, he is more dangerous than a marine with a rifle, “hands down." Chris Franks said the culture of company centers around their passion for what they do: “Truly, it’s what this group of people get up in the morning and think about. You should see the chat screen on the computers… these guys joke about security… it is what this group of people love and are passionate about.” This is the drive that keeps Secure Ideas ahead of malicious hackers.
For Dawson and Secure Ideas, being at Galvanize has brought its own set of unique benefits. “We’re not only building our company and our own sales but the community environment encourages all these businesses to help support one another in various ways so everyone succeeds – from finding a T-shirt vendor or PR company, to helping each other learn about business operations and networking opportunities."
Part of this for Secure Ideas is teaching startups about secure coding techniques. Dawson and Secure Ideas want to help startups by preaching the importance of secure coding and want to help them "implement some security steps in that initial process that will go a long way and cost a lot less than redoing things afterwards, or trying to recover from a security incident, which could mean the end of an entrepreneurial venture.”
On December 20, Secure Ideas is offering a free introductory secure coding workshop for beginning to mid-level developers. On January 14 and 15, Secure Ideas will hold its first public offering of their Secure Coding for Web Developers seminar, appropriate for mid-level to advanced developers. Both days feature a constant stream of lecture and lab work to put into practice what you’ll learn. The second half of Day 2 is a Capture the Flag competition to put your new skills to the test against your peers.
