Cyber security start-up Purplephish joins Manchester’s growing tech scene

A Manchester start-up backed by Manchester tech entrepreneur Paul Kenyon is helping the business community tackle the global threat faced by cyber-attacks.

Launched this year, Purplephish helps organisations address the growing challenge of cyber security, shifting corporate focus to crime prevention rather than post-crime detection and its costly aftermath.

Combating what is now recognised as one of the biggest threats to business, Purplephish provides software-based security awareness training and a simulated phishing platform, allowing businesses to roll out real-world scenarios among their staff base, preventing cyber-attacks.

With the UK Government’s 2017 Cyber Security Breaches Survey reporting that 46% of businesses fall victim to such attacks- with 72% of these due to staff receiving and opening fraudulent emails – Purplephish has developed a cloud-based, user-friendly solution that is geared towards employee awareness training.

The veracity of Purplephish’s methodology is shown against the cyber threat landscape in a new White Paper written with Dr Daniel G Dresner, a cyber security expert from the University of Manchester.

In the paper, Purplephish identifies effective end-user training as one of the biggest areas for effecting change in the fight against cyber crime.

Purplephish’s developers have designed and built the solution utilising Salesforce.

Using its simulate, evaluate, educate, calibrate methodology, businesses can test employees’ susceptibility to cyber threats, discover the areas of exposure, educate through interactive training modules, and monitor over time, while pitting performance against industry peers.

Deploying attack simulations built and designed by security experts allows businesses to train users against real-life scenarios.

This means employees are prepared for the threats they will face in a real-world environment and not just a classroom exercise.

In the fight against cyber crime, the market is seeing significant investment as well as consolidation, demonstrating the importance and growth in the space.

Competitors Cofense, formerly Pishme, and Wombat, have recently been involved in merger and acquisition activity worth £290m and £163m, respectively, while KnowBe4 has attracted £31.5m investment.

Paul Kenyon said: “Cyber security is a rising challenge for UK businesses and will be a huge growth area over the coming years.

“With high profile cyber-attacks crippling organisations, such as the Wannacry attack on the NHS last year, the scale of the threat is clear.

“Human error and lack of education has been pinpointed in a number of studies, with 80% of businesses not addressing cyber training within their employee base.

“We see a clear opportunity to work with organisations of all sizes, helping them strengthen their approach to such business challenges.”

He added: “I firmly believe Purplephish can help shape this market, differentiated by their leading edge technology and unique approach taken to educating end users.”