Welcome to MRG Effitas
Leaders in innovative efficacy assessment
MRG Effitas is a world-leader in independent IT security efficacy testing, research and expertise.
In the drive to protect businesses and home users from ever more advanced malicious threats, malware and viruses, our innovative research and testing is helping security vendors to be the best they can be.
Our strategy has been to invest heavily into market-leading expertise and research so that we can be at the frontier of efficacy assessment and testing. As a result, we are the most forward-looking research organisation in our field, with a unique degree of technical competence in anticipating and planning for future trends and challenges, for example in WAF and NextGen testing.
We are trusted by the major Anti-Virus and digital security vendors to assess their products and to provide technical expertise and insight.
Our university partnerships
From our inception we recognised the benefits of working with university research departments, particularly in the field of R&D. We continue to fund university research, which frees postgraduate students to focus on issues that may provide no immediate cash benefit but can further the sum of knowledge of malicious threats.
Our synergy with universities helps us to anticipate threats that may come to fruition in several years’ time.
Many of our team are from elite university research departments and we encourage them to remain fully engaged with those universities to enhance their learning.
Our history
In 2009 a group of IT research and security experts came together to create a website and forum to publish news, research and assessments of security software. We referred to ourselves as the Malware Research Group (MRG).
Some of the group’s work was cutting edge; vendors began to reach out to us for samples and information on our assessments.
It became clear to one of our founders, Chris Pickard, that MRG filled a significant niche in the market. Recognising an opportunity, he founded Effitas Ltd in 2011 to serve as the vehicle and legal entity for the output of MRG, allowing us to formally engage with vendors and expand our work on a technical and financial level.
Since all Effitas’ tests were published as MRG Effitas in order to reflect the legacy of MRG, Chris incorporated MRG Effitas in 2013 to secure the name as a brand.
Since its very beginning, the business now known as MRG Effitas has focused on providing ground-breaking testing processes and realistically modelling real-world environments in order to generate the most accurate efficacy assessments possible.
It is recognised by many renowned security vendors as the leading testing and assessment organisation in the NextGen, online banking, browser security and cloud security spaces, and has become the partner of choice for organisations within these sectors around the world.
Over its lifetime, MRG Effitas’ strategy has been to invest heavily into expertise and innovation, with the result that it is at the leading edge of efficacy assessment and testing, with unique competence in current and future challenges such as NextGen and WAF testing.
MRG Effitas analysts have the following technical certificates:
Offensive Security Exploitation Expert (OSEE), Offensive Security Certified Expert (OSCE), Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH).