About Cipher Knights — Cyber Security in Leicester

Why we started

Cipher Knights was incorporated in December 2024 by John Uwahamen Usiabulu, after years of watching the same pattern: small businesses being sold either nothing at all, or an enterprise security programme scaled down badly and priced up aggressively. Neither serves a fifteen-person company that just wants to know whether it is exposed and what to do about it.

The gap is not knowledge, it is translation. The controls that protect a small business are well documented and mostly free — the NCSC publishes them. What is missing is someone who will look at your actual systems, tell you in plain English which five things matter, and then help you do them.

How we work

We quote fixed prices before starting. We write reports a director can read without a glossary. We tell clients when they do not need something — including when they do not need us — because the alternative is a short relationship. And we are specific about our own limits: we are eight people in Leicester, we do not operate a 24/7 security operations centre, and where a piece of work needs a specialism we do not hold, we bring in a partner and say so.

That last point matters more than it sounds. A large share of what damages small businesses is not attackers, it is being sold the wrong thing by someone who would not say no.

• ✓Fixed scope and fixed price, agreed in writing before work begins
• ✓Plain-English reporting with a technical annex where one is useful
• ✓A named consultant you can contact directly, not a ticket queue
• ✓Honest about what we do not do, and who should do it instead

Where we work

We are based in Leicester and do on-site work across Leicestershire, Nottingham, Derby, Coventry, Birmingham and Northampton. Assessment, cloud, compliance and advisory work is delivered remotely for clients anywhere in the UK.

Our clients are typically between five and one hundred and fifty people, concentrated in healthcare, professional services, retail, education and manufacturing.