This Startup Is Enabling Its Customers To Stay Ahead Of Hackers – SecIQ Technologies

• ByAyushi Ray     |    September 1, 2021

“It requires a lot of patience and endurance for the opportunity to prove yourself to the customer, to gain their confidence and let the world know about your brand. Once that is proven, then sky’s the limit to achieve,” Bivin Jacob, Founder, SecIQ Technologies said in an interview with Startup Story.

Introduction To The Founder

Bivin Jacob was born and brought up in a humble family in southernmost tip of India, He then moved to Bangalore in early 2000’s to pursue his bachelors at Lowry group of Institutions. He says, “Right from my childhood I have always been the ‘odd one out’, who wanted to approach things differently and was willing to take risks to pursue his dreams.” He strongly believes that, “Your background doesn’t matter as long as you are someone who is hardworking and persevering towards success.”

Having worked for more than 15 years in Sales, Marketing and Business development across various domains, he then realised cyber security is the domain which excited him the most and so he decided to venture into it with the passion to leverage technologies and transform ideas into business which can revolutionize the industry.

How SecIQ Technologies Was Born

Bivin took Startup Story down memory lane right to the point where the trigger to start SecIQ Technologies had started while he and his friends found an obvious security issue in one of the well-known mobile applications from a start-up, which could impact millions of users. They then reached out to them, helped them to fix the vulnerabilities and hence secured them from a huge potential data breach. That experience made them realize that most of the start-ups currently are racing with time and are striving to get their ideas productized at the earliest – But in this race security has become an afterthought for most organizations.

He further says,”That there are about 41,061 active start-ups in India & it’s exponentially growing with technologies that are evolving, a lot of these companies are bringing in products which are an integral part of day-to-day life for users.” Right from travel to ordering food during this lockdown, the usage of Mobile, web & IOT apps is drastically increasing and along with this is the increase in cyber-crimes.

Due to huge cost, many start-ups do not prefer to maintain an in-house security team early nor are they able to invest in tools and processes till they have matured their product. This opens a huge potential for offering security as a service to most of these organizations. That’s where they felt there was a need to address this gap and a great opportunity to work as an extended security team – providing them with best-in-class security service for an affordable cost for every start-up.

About SecIQ Technologies

SecIQ Technologies is a pure-play information security consulting firm with an extremely skilled team of security professionals, researchers and thought leaders all dedicated to one cause — providing their clients with the best cyber security service possible.

He further said, “We provide end to end product security assessments for complete product lifecycle across various technologies – right from building in security requirements early in the life-cycle to design/ architecture reviews, Security code review, Vulnerability assessment & penetration testing (VAPT), Network architecture reviews, Cloud security review and Red teaming exercise, along with best-in-class security assessments, training, and consulting services.”

Story Behind The Name

Bivin said, “We wanted our identity to be known as a pure play information security consulting firm. We decided on this brand name “SecIQ Technologies” which conveys our identity as experts in the cyber security domain with the intelligence that we bring in to secure our customers.”

Coming Out In The Market

“All it takes is just one opportunity”, says Bivin Jacob, adding, “It was a humble beginning and the challenge was to earn the trust of one customer who was willing to give us the business opportunity and a breakthrough.” On receiving that one opportunity from a start-up, they were dedicated to delivering the best in securing their product.

As is well- known, “a satisfied customer is your best spokesperson”. They started to expand and establish their brand with customers across various domains. A number of customers who realised their potential leveraged services as continuous engagement and a constant partner in their journey to success. SecIQ Technologies made its presence in the industry and the brand name was broadly recognised through social media.

And soon they were recognised in the industry and emerged as preferred service providers for many startups and MNCs including core security product development companies. Currently, they are catering services to various sectors in the country & globally right from IT Products, Travel , Logistics & Supply chain , manufacturing etc.

Customer Review

On being asked about Customer feedback and reviews received so far, Bivin opened up about how it was their mantra “whether catering to a small or large size customer, we believe in giving the best for every customer. And customer satisfaction is our top most priority.”

Just like how a fresher needs to build his profile for himself, in the same way Bivin said as a Start-up they focused on gaining brand name and trust. Once that was built, everything fell in place and they were known as the most trusted choice for customers.

As technology evolves newer challenges are emerging for all the existing customers and beyond. With emerging challenges in the information security domain every day, they are constantly evolving to meet the growing demands for cyber security in the market.

Standing Out

As a consulting firm, they strongly believe in their expert technical team. In the past, with just one opportunity they have managed to surprise customers by identifying critical security vulnerabilities in their products which have been tested earlier. This has helped them realise the value add of SecIQ and the unique skill-set that is being brought in. The core differentiating factor is an in depth manual approach combined with automation and home-grown script that enables them to exploit vulnerabilities from a hacker standpoint, which traditional scanners usually fail to identify.

Another major differentiating factor is that they work in a very flexible fashion with tailor-made services to meet the customer’s security requirements. They not only find and report security vulnerabilities, but also stand as a strong extended security team helping them with their end-to-end security requirements including training, consulting, support in terms of incident response, specialized security audits and reviews.

Challenges Faced

For a growing organization like SecIQ Technologies , the biggest challenge Bivin said is to scale for the growing demand. There is huge demand in the industry and as technology evolves newer challenges are emerging for all the existing customers and beyond. Adding to that, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on many of the security challenges organizations are currently facing. With the information security domain being a niche area, they are experiencing a challenging phase to scale at breadth and to meet the growing demands.

About the Team Behind SecIQ Technologies

Bivin said, “I am working with a highly skilled team of security professionals who are truly passionate about security and with absolute dedication to be great team players.” They have a blend of team members with different skill sets like network, web app, Mobile apps , Cloud, IOT and more- Seniors in the industry come with huge experience as architects to freshers who are enthusiastic go-getters and curious to exploit newer vulnerabilities. Each person brings unique strengths to the team. They strongly believe in “team strength and to win as a team.” All in all they have maintained a culture where they respect each other’s skill and provide complete freedom to explore.

Piece Of Advice By The Founder

“Just as any start-up, we had our own share of struggle in the initial days. It requires a lot of patience and endurance for the opportunity to prove yourself to the customer, to gain their confidence and let the world know about your brand. Once that is proven, then sky’s the limit to achieve. Treat all the customers equally delivering your best service, irrespective of how small or how huge an organization they may be. No matter what the product or service may be, the only chance you have to succeed above the rest is to ensure that you are in constant touch with the needs and concerns of your customer. A satisfied customer is your brand’s spokesperson” Bivin Jacob, Founder, SecIQ Technologies.

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