Critical Assets was founded in 2008 by Matt Harrigan in response to the rising demand for cybersecurity expertise. This wasn’t Matt’s first rodeo. According to Kevin Poulsen’s 2011 book “Kingpin,” Matt was first to market in 1995 with a professional services offering in the ethical hacking space with his first company “MCR.”

Internet growth and the demand for near real-time insight into incidents subsequently morphed MCR into the first Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP), collecting data from managed firewall, IDS, and endpoint into an aggregate datastore. By combining best-in breed offensive cyber exercises with the ability to gain real-world insights into ongoing attacks, the company was able to prototype one of the SIEM platforms on the market. 

While MCR was acquired by early 2000, the fundamentals of infosec never change. The lessons learned from early penetration testing and red team events, paired with real-world monitoring of some of the largest internet facing environments provide a foundation for understanding today’s more complex environments. 

Matt recently appeared as the first episode of the series “Where Warlocks Stay Up Late, ” which aims to document the history of the information security community and industry.  He has also been cited by the media on many occasions, including Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Techcrunch, The Discovery Channel and more. 

We have worked with clients in nearly every vertical, including from defense and aerospace to banking and online services. Our primary focus is in offensive security, but we will occasionally engage in security design on interesting projects.