About Us
Why was Brainstorm Security founded?
Hello, my name is Richard, and I am the founder of Brainstorm Security Ltd. This is a shortened version of my life and journey in how I created this company.
I had always wanted to be a police officer, ever since being a little boy. I grew up and took on a number of different jobs, from office equipment sales, to working for local government. A year or so before the ‘Dot-com boom’ of the late 80s, and having a lifelong interest in computers, I was offered two different jobs as a computer programmer. However, I passed up on these amazing opportunities to earn an extra £30 a week ‘beer money’ working in an office. As we grow up, we can all look back and consider ‘what if?’ in our life choices.
I travelled and worked abroad, returning to the UK to join the police. There I enjoyed an amazing career for nearly three decades. I worked in public facing uniformed police roles. I would walk the beat while checking if doors were locked on commercial premises in the middle of the night. I had exposure to people from all parts of society, from the homeless to high society, which gave me an amazing experience of communicating with people. Furthermore, I mastered my skills of dealing with incidents under pressure, and with people often in crisis, victims, offenders, witnesses and everyone else associated with the criminal justice system. Many critical incidents would often involve ‘life or death’ decision-making. I took this in my stride, following the core policing principles, protecting life and property, preserving order, preventing the commission of offences and bringing offenders to justice.
Why not hire the A Team?
I spent the last two decades working on CID, major crime and in covert roles dealing with the most serious of offences. This included a broad range of crimes such as Murder, Kidnap, Child sexual exploitation, Counter Terrorism, Ransomware, Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin enabled crime, Dark web enabled crime, Extortion, Hacking related offences and threat assessments relating to (PII) Personal Identifiable Information/Data sold or leaked on the internet, Robbery, Burglary, Theft, Corruption and misconduct, Sexual offences, Car crime, Drug importation and supply as just some examples.
Often working in a small team, it would sometimes feel like the ‘A’ team. Our 80’s TV heroes motto was, ‘If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them…. maybe you can hire the A-Team.’ We would often get asked for ideas and strategies how to catch some of the most dangerous and clever criminals. We would come up with a plan, put it into action and successfully bring to justice, the ‘Mr Bigs’ of the criminal underworld. (Except we would not use any Gaffer tape or build a tank in deploying our plans, unlike the real ‘A’ team).
Experienced penetration testers
My career has enabled me to obtain a broad and secure skills base, including OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence Gathering), Social Engineering and HUMINT (Human Intelligence). I have gained a large amount of experience planning and conducting highly successful physical penetration tests on some very secure government premises. My physical penetration testing experience has also included large scale music and sporting events. Some events have had VIP and key dignitaries attending with their own armed security details. As a qualified trainer and assessor, I have trained many ‘police only’ courses and have been a subject matter expert, delivering lessons at the College of Policing.
Some of my key achievements include, representing my organisation when supporting and training an international police force. Working with other UK Government agencies and other international law enforcement agencies on active investigations. Creating and leading one of the UKs most effective, specialist online investigation teams to bring to justice many cyber criminals and child sex offenders.
Why start a security company?
My personal journey took a sharp turn during the Covid Lockdown of 2020/21. I had been dreaming of setting up a company to help people and companies, using my security and specialist cyber skills that I now possessed. However, my police career was cut short when I suffered a sudden life-threatening medical emergency that nearly killed me. (Feel free to ask me about this particularly challenging part of my life over a coffee…. or beer 😀) Coupled with the recent loss of a friend and family member, I knew now was the time to start. Life was too short.
Never being one to shy away from a challenge, I started the business to do things differently in the world of security. I wanted to disrupt the status quo, to show that security awareness can be delivered another way, and to make life better for people as I had done while working in law enforcement. I was fed up with large companies just selling a ‘compliance solution’ and not dealing with truly improving security.
Brainstorm Security was created small and agile, to help supply security training, awareness and solutions you really require. The company was created to listen to the needs of the customers. Just like the ‘A’ teams introduction, ‘If you have a problem…’ we can work with you and think creatively, to help solve your security problems.
We specialise in social engineering and hacking the human
The company would ‘specialise’ in social engineering and hacking the human. By testing staff and then using those real-life examples of how we infiltrated your security, this is an effective learning model that will grab your people’s attention. Coupled with many years of experience, in interacting with real criminals and investigating real crime scenes, we can bring a ‘real’ element to the assessments and training, that other companies cannot supply when using just tech / training or salespeople to deliver your solutions.
Our aim is to educate people how to protect themselves on a personal level, from the ‘bad guys’. Helping them at being better at identifying conmen and unauthorised persons. Spotting physical security weaknesses at premises and identifying possible ways criminals could commit cyber-crimes against them. I believe once everyone is trained to be ‘security aware’ on a personal level, often using free and simple to use methods, they will automatically bring this change to the security culture of your business. It is a solution where everyone benefits.Your staff are more secure at home and when they are at work. We aim at empowering staff to know how to deal with suspicious incidents and helping companies create plans and policies to effectively help mitigate these risks.
Our aim and mission
It’s Brainstorm Security Ltd.’s mission to help you, rather than our own wealth, that’s the rallying cry! We don’t use assessments of your security to highlight incorrect practices so staff can be punished or reprimanded. We all make mistakes…. but we can all learn from mistakes too! We educate in a totally inclusive manner, allowing everyone to learn in a relaxed and fun way. We are also able to scale the training, post security assessment, by using our online training solutions to accommodate large and enterprise sized companies.
My team and I, look forward to working with you in the future, and learning all about your achievements.