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CovertSwarm putting connectivity providers under Constant Cyber Attack
Connectivity infrastructure has become critical infrastructure. As broadband networks, fibre rollouts, and the operational technology behind them become ever more embedded in daily life, the organisations that build and run that connectivity are a growing target for attackers, and the traditional approach to testing their defences hasn’t kept pace. CovertSwarm exists to close that gap. We are a continuous offensive security company. Rather than a single annual penetration test and a static report, we operate as an extension of our clients’ security teams year-round, simulating real adversaries under what we call constant cyber attack. Our “Swarm,” a distributed team of ethical hackers, red teamers, and social engineers, works continuously across an organisation’s digital, physical, and human attack surface, surfacing vulnerabilities as they emerge rather than months after the fact. That model matters especially for connectivity and infrastructure providers. Operators, altnets, and the vendors supporting them run environments where operational technology sits alongside traditional IT, and where a single overlooked gap can mean service disruption at scale, not just a data breach. A vulnerability in a network management system, a poorly segmented OT environment, or an employee who falls for a convincing phishing attempt can all lead to the same outcome: customers offline and trust damaged. Attackers don’t wait for a scheduled test window, and increasingly, neither do we. Our engagements span web and application security, cloud and network infrastructure, and OT/IoT environments, alongside social engineering including phishing, vishing, and physical intrusion testing designed to probe people and processes as much as systems. For operators managing physical exchanges, cabinets, and remote infrastructure alongside customer facing digital services, this breadth matters. A network is only as secure as its weakest point, whether that point is a piece of code, a piece of hardware, or a person answering the phone.
Anders Reeves, CEO and founder of CovertSwarm
What sets us apart is the combination of persistence and realism. We don’t just flag theoretical weaknesses. We actively exploit them the way a genuine adversary would, then work with clients to remediate and re-test on an ongoing basis, giving security and network teams a live, evolving picture of risk rather than a snapshot that’s outdated within weeks. That continuous feedback loop is particularly valuable in an industry where infrastructure is constantly being extended, upgraded, and reconfigured, and where the attack surface rarely stays still long enough for an annual test to capture it accurately. We work across sectors where the cost of a breach or outage is measured in more than money: financial services,
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SEPTEMBER 2026 Volume 48 No.3
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