UK cybersecurity specialist WorkNest Secure has achieved Accredited Organisation status under The Cyber Scheme, providing further independent recognition of the technical expertise and professional standards maintained across its services.

The accreditation recognises organisations that demonstrate professional competence, quality and alignment with established cybersecurity industry standards. It also places particular emphasis on the qualifications and capabilities of the professionals delivering those services.

For WorkNest Secure, the latest recognition builds on its existing technical accreditations and reflects its continued investment in developing and maintaining a highly skilled cybersecurity workforce.

Independent Recognition of Cybersecurity Expertise

The Cyber Scheme is a Licensed Body of the UK Cyber Security Council and works to assess and recognise cybersecurity professionals against established industry standards.

Its Accredited Company Programme is designed to give businesses greater confidence when selecting cybersecurity service providers by linking organisational accreditation to independently verified workforce capabilities.

Unlike certifications focused primarily on processes or technical controls, the programme places significant importance on the people delivering cybersecurity services and their professional competence.

WorkNest Secure already has a number of penetration testing consultants who hold individual accreditations through The Cyber Scheme, making company-wide recognition a natural progression.

Jordan Constantine, Head of Offensive Security at WorkNest Secure, said the accreditation provides customers with independent evidence of the team’s capabilities.

“Becoming accredited under The Cyber Scheme felt like a natural step for WorkNest Secure. It’s one thing to say our team meets a high standard; it’s another to have that verified independently, and many of our penetration testing consultants are accredited under their scheme.”

He added: “Their assessments are respected across government and industry, and that gives our clients real confidence in the people testing their systems. It’s proof, not just a claim.”

Building Trust in Cybersecurity Services

The accreditation comes as organisations increasingly rely on external cybersecurity specialists to help identify vulnerabilities, assess risks and strengthen their defences.

With businesses placing considerable trust in third-party providers, independently verified qualifications and professional standards can provide an important measure of assurance.

Kirsty Fowler, Managing Director of WorkNest Secure, believes the expertise of cybersecurity professionals remains central to delivering effective security services.

“Cybersecurity is a people business. Technology is incredibly important, but customers also need to know that the people testing their systems, advising their teams and helping them respond to risk have the right expertise behind them.”

She added that the accreditation also reflects the company’s commitment to supporting professional development.

“Achieving the Cyber Scheme accreditation gives our customers another level of independent assurance and reflects the investment we continue to make in our people.”

Supporting Continued Growth

WorkNest Secure was formed following the integration of Pentest People and Bulletproof under the WorkNest Group, bringing together expertise across penetration testing, red teaming, attack simulation, information security, data protection and compliance.

The company also provides GuardNest, its proprietary vulnerability management platform, which combines vulnerability visibility, threat intelligence and compliance capabilities.

WorkNest Secure holds CREST and CHECK accreditations for penetration testing and recently achieved CREST STAR-FS accreditation for intelligence-led red teaming within financial services.

The latest accreditation adds to these credentials as the company continues to develop its technical capabilities and strengthen its position in the UK cybersecurity services market.

WorkNest Secure forms part of WorkNest Group, which employs more than 800 people and supports over 50,000 customers across ten countries.

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UK-based secure data exchange specialist DOQEX has achieved Cyber Essentials certification, adding another recognised security standard to its existing portfolio of accreditations.

The York-based company, which specialises in protecting sensitive information shared between organisations, already holds ISO 27001, ISO 27017 and ISO 27018 certifications. The latest achievement reflects its continued focus on maintaining strong security controls and protecting customer information.

Cyber Essentials is a UK Government-backed scheme designed to help businesses defend themselves against common cyber threats. It assesses five fundamental areas of cybersecurity: firewalls, secure configuration, security update management, user access control and malware protection.

Getting the Cybersecurity Basics Right

While DOQEX already operates under established international security standards, the company said completing the Cyber Essentials certification process provided a valuable opportunity to revisit its existing controls.

Nick Case, Director and Co-Founder of DOQEX, admitted that the company had initially underestimated the process.

“Having already achieved ISO 27001, ISO 27017 and ISO 27018, I’ll admit we initially underestimated Cyber Essentials. We thought we had the fundamentals well covered, but going through the process reminded us why they matter.”

He explained that the certification’s emphasis on practical security measures provided an important reminder that even organisations with mature cybersecurity programmes need to regularly assess their defences.

“Cyber Essentials has a clear focus on practical, verifiable security controls, and that has genuine value. It’s easy to concentrate on more complex security challenges, but the basics still need attention.”

The certification comes as organisations face increasing pressure to demonstrate that appropriate security measures are in place, particularly when handling sensitive business information or working with external suppliers.

Strengthening Trust Across the Supply Chain

As businesses become more reliant on third-party technology providers and external partners, cybersecurity certifications are playing a growing role in procurement decisions and supplier assurance.

Recognised standards can help organisations demonstrate that they have implemented appropriate safeguards, providing customers and partners with greater confidence in how their information is managed.

Case believes improving baseline security across UK businesses is particularly important as supply chains become more interconnected.

“We fully support what Cyber Essentials is trying to achieve. Raising the baseline of cybersecurity across UK businesses is important, particularly as organisations become increasingly dependent on suppliers and third parties. Stronger security across the supply chain benefits everyone.”

Supporting Secure Data Exchange

Founded in 2013, DOQEX helps organisations securely manage and exchange sensitive information between employees, customers, suppliers and business partners.

Its services combine security technology with managed support, helping businesses maintain control over information as it moves between organisations.

The Cyber Essentials certification builds on the company’s existing ISO standards and reinforces its approach to security governance, accountability and data protection.

For DOQEX, the achievement also highlights a wider message for businesses: while cybersecurity threats continue to become more sophisticated, maintaining effective fundamental controls remains an essential part of protecting sensitive information.

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Salt Security has won three categories at Cyber Defense Magazine’s 2026 Top InfoSec Innovators awards, recognising its work in agentic AI and API security.

The company received the Most Promising Agentic AI Security Solution, Trailblazing AI-based Cybersecurity Innovation and Transformational API Security Solution awards. The awards were announced at CyberDefenseCon 2026 in Orlando as part of the programme’s 14th annual edition.

The recognition comes as organisations face challenges in overseeing AI agents and securing the APIs through which they access data and carry out tasks.

Salt Security’s State of Agentic AI and API Security 2H 2026 report, released this month, surveyed more than 380 security and technology professionals. It found that nearly half of enterprises had confirmed or suspected that an AI agent took an unauthorised action in the past year. Fewer than one in five could automatically stop a misbehaving agent.

“Our research shows that the governance gap is not theoretical: agents are already acting in ways organizations did not intend, and most organizations cannot stop them in time. We are honored to be recognized as leaders in addressing that problem,” said Roey Eliyahu, CEO of Salt Security.

The company’s Agentic Security Platform discovers AI agents, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and APIs within an organisation’s environment. It also governs their connections and permissions, monitors agent behaviour during operation and identifies vulnerabilities before deployment.

Gary S. Miliefsky, publisher of Cyber Defense Magazine, said the judging criteria included an understanding of emerging threats, cost-effective solutions and innovation that could help reduce cyber risk.

The full list of winners is available on the Cyber Defense Awards website.

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Certes has received Frost & Sullivan’s 2026 Global Enabling Technology Leadership Recognition in post-quantum cryptography (PQC), following an independent evaluation of vendors in the market.

The recognition centres on a problem most security teams are now facing: migrating embedded cryptography across legacy applications, cloud environments and critical infrastructure will take years, but “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks mean data intercepted today could be exposed once sufficiently powerful quantum computers arrive. Frost & Sullivan notes that the risk is greatest for data with long regulatory, legal or commercial lifespans, and that protecting it needs to run in parallel with the longer migration effort rather than wait for it to finish.

Separating cryptography from the stack

At the heart of Certes’ platform is its Cryptographic Abstraction Layer (CAL), which sits between applications and infrastructure and lifts cryptographic protection out of the underlying technology stack. Rather than waiting for each vendor to ship a quantum-safe update and then managing disruptive upgrades, security teams can manage cryptographic change centrally and apply it to data flowing between systems.

The platform comprises the Certes Enforcement Point (CEP), which encrypts and decrypts within the data path, and the Certes Policy Manager (CPM), which manages policies and cryptographic controls centrally. Frost & Sullivan singled out its policy-specific key architecture as a key differentiator: each policy-controlled application or data flow can have its own key material, separate rotation schedules and customer-controlled key components. This is combined with quantum-based random number generation and customer-owned keys to support data sovereignty.

Certes’ patented Layer 4 payload protection encrypts the payload while preserving original network headers, so routing, QoS, monitoring, SD-WAN and flow visibility tools continue to work without applications being rewritten or networks re-architected. Deployment options span physical appliances, virtual machines on VMware ESXi, KVM, Red Hat and Nutanix AHV, and Windows and Linux client agents. Version 7 extends enforcement closer to workloads and users through expanded agent and cloud deployment options, reducing unprotected segments in the data’s journey.

Beyond quantum

The report also highlights uses beyond PQC migration. Cryptographic segmentation can separate IT and OT environments and limit lateral movement in flat networks, while a virtual air gap capability can dynamically isolate critical applications, data flows and backups during an active attack while preserving recovery. Certes’ encryption can also stop sensitive data being exposed to internal or external LLMs, giving organisations tighter governance over AI adoption.

Ozgun Pelit, Senior Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said: “Certes stands out in the emerging post-quantum security market through its focus on protecting data independently of the applications and infrastructure around it. Its combination of cryptographic abstraction, crypto-agility and centralized policy enforcement provides organisations with a practical way to reduce near-term quantum risk while navigating what will inevitably be a complex, multi-year migration.”

Paul German, CEO at Certes, said: “The next cryptographic revolution could arrive before many organizations have finished implementing the last one. Post-quantum cryptography is only the beginning. As AI and quantum technologies advance, cryptographic change will accelerate, and organisations cannot afford to rebuild their applications, networks and security infrastructure every time it happens.”

He added: “In a world where cryptography must constantly evolve, the ability to change it without changing everything else isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.”

The full Frost & Sullivan report is available HERE

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WorkNest Secure has expanded its GuardNest platform with continuous vulnerability scanning, giving organisations ongoing visibility into security weaknesses rather than relying solely on periodic penetration tests.

The new capability is designed to help businesses monitor vulnerabilities across internet-facing systems, web applications, and internal environments, providing continuous oversight of their attack surface as threats and infrastructure evolve.

The launch comes as organisations face increasing pressure from customers, insurers, and regulators to demonstrate continuous vulnerability management and stronger cyber resilience.

Moving beyond annual penetration testing

While penetration testing remains a critical part of any cybersecurity strategy, WorkNest Secure says annual or point-in-time assessments no longer provide a complete picture of an organisation’s security posture.

The enhanced GuardNest platform combines automated vulnerability scanning with expert analysis and remediation support, allowing organisations to identify vulnerabilities as they emerge and prioritise the issues that present the greatest business risk.

Organisations can schedule scans, monitor vulnerabilities in real time, and manage remediation activities through a single dashboard.

The platform now supports external vulnerability scanning, internal vulnerability scanning, web application scanning, and agent-based internal scanning, allowing customers to tailor the service to their environment and compliance requirements.

Simplifying vulnerability management

Alongside continuous scanning, GuardNest introduces new remediation workflows designed to help security and IT teams manage vulnerabilities more effectively.

Organisations can assign remediation tasks, define service level targets based on vulnerability severity, and track progress through to resolution. Automated escalation and SLA tracking are intended to ensure vulnerabilities are actively managed rather than simply recorded in reports.

The platform also includes live dashboards, historical trend reporting, and automated reporting that can support compliance initiatives, cyber insurance renewals, customer due diligence, and certifications including ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials Plus, and PCI DSS.

Helping organizations focus on what matters

Kirsty Fowler, Managing Director of WorkNest Secure, said organisations need greater visibility into their cyber risks as environments continue to change.

“Cyber threats do not operate to an annual schedule, yet many organisations are still relying on point-in-time assessments to understand their security posture,” Fowler said.

“New vulnerabilities emerge every day and infrastructure changes constantly, so businesses need visibility of their risks as they exist today, not six months ago.”

She added that the new functionality is intended to reduce the complexity of vulnerability management by combining automation with expert support.

“By combining automated scanning with expert support and practical remediation guidance, we help organisations cut through the noise, understand what matters most, and know exactly where action is needed,” Fowler said.

Responding to changing security needs

The launch reflects a broader shift in how organisations approach cybersecurity investment, with many moving away from one-off security projects in favour of continuous monitoring and ongoing risk management.

WorkNest Secure said the new functionality is available immediately either as a standalone vulnerability management service or as part of existing GuardNest packages.

The latest release builds on the redesign of the GuardNest platform in 2025, which introduced a more collaborative and user-friendly approach to vulnerability management, penetration testing, and remediation.

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