NCC Group

History

Formation and growth

NCC Group was formed in June 1999, when the National Computing Centre sold its commercial divisions to its existing management team supported by private equity firm ECI Ventures. This new company was named NCC Services Ltd and was renamed NCC Group Ltd in May 2000. In 2000, Rob Cotton was hired as finance director and subsequently took responsibility for the Group's escrow division. In 2003 he led a secondary management buyout and became chief executive of NCC Group Ltd. This valued the Group at £30 million and was supported by Barclays Private Equity.

On 12 July 2004, NCC Group was admitted to trading on AIM, with the flotation raising £38.1 million before expenses. After rapid expansion, in July 2007 the Group made the move to the London Stock Exchange's main market.

In August 2020, training materials, from NCC Group, a founding member of the cyber security certification body CREST, including practical examination “cheat sheets” for the CREST CCT INF and CCT APP examinations were leaked on to the GitHub and Dropbox platforms. The leaked documents described internal training procedures involving “cloned examination rigs” and offered step by step walkthroughs of CREST examinations. Due to the breach of exam integrity CREST suspended practical examinations and in a statement said it "will be appointing an independent investigative panel.”

Top level domain operations

In 2012 NCC Group announced the investment of £6 million over 15 months in a wholly owned subsidiary, Artemis Internet. This was used to apply for a new .secure generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) and develop an associated security programme. The application was subsequently abandoned and .secure was assigned to a different applicant. In 2014 NCC Group acquired the right to operate the generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) .trust from Deutsche Post.

Acquisitions

NCC Group has expanded through a mixture of organic growth and acquisitions:

• 2006 Recall Total Information Management's escrow division
• 2006 Source Harbor
• 2007 Secure Test
• 2007 Site Confidence
• 2008 Escrow Europe
• 2008 Next Generation Security Software (NGS)
• 2010 iSEC Partners Inc
• 2010 SDLC Solutions
• 2010 Meridian Services International
• 2011 Axzona Ltd
• 2011 Escrow Associates
• 2012 Matasano Security
• 2012 Intrepidus Group
• 2014 FortConsult A/S
• 2015 Open Registry Group
• 2015 Accumuli
• 2015 Fox-IT
• 2016 Payment Software Company, Inc.
• 2016 VSR, Inc.
• 2021 Iron Mountain's Intellectual Property Management business
• 2022 Adelard LLP

References

References

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8. "NCC Group admits its training data was leaked online after folders full of CREST pentest certification exam notes posted to GitHub".
9. (2020-08-11). "Internal NCC training data and CREST exam questions leaked on Github".
10. "Examination Material – updated 17 August 2020".
11. "CREST: We are investigating NCC Group certification cheat sheet scandal – and not with NCC personnel".
12. (2012-05-10). "NCC Group to invest £6m in web domain". Manchester Evening News.
13. ".secure Registry Agreement". ICANN.
14. (2014-02-17). "NCC Group PLC Acquisition of first gTLD .trust". Wall Street Journal.
15. "NCC Group Purchases Source Code Escrow Division of Recall". Prweb.com.
16. (2006-07-07). "NCC Group buys US-based Source Harbor for up to 1.5 mln usd - Finance News - London South East". Lse.co.uk.
17. (2008-07-03). "UPDATE 1-NCC year profit up 29 pct, sees more growth". In.reuters.com.
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20. (2008-11-28). "NCC acquires security testing rival NGSS for £10m". Computerweekly.com.
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22. (2010-04-23). "NCC Group Buys SDLC Solutions For Maximum Consideration Of £15 Mln In Cash - Quick Facts". Rttnews.com.
23. (2010-03-19). "NCC Group acquires credit card auditor Meridian for up to £3 mln - Proactiveinvestors (UK)". Proactiveinvestors.
24. "NCC Group acquires Axzona web performance". Compute Scotland.
25. Kevin Feddy. (2011-03-29). "NCC Group buys Escrow Associates in £6m deal". Manchester Evening News.
26. (2012-08-02). "NCC Group will pay up to £8.4m to acquire Matasano Security | 2 August 2012". Stock Market Wire.
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30. (2015-03-24). "IT security firm NCC buys UK rival Accumuli to boost capabilities". Reuters.
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33. (11 November 2016). "NCC Group buys Boston-based Virtual Security Research". LSE.
34. (13 May 2021). "NCC Group to buy Iron Mountain's intellectual property business". Sharecast.
35. (22 April 2022). "NCC Group announces acquisition of Adelard". NCC Group.