Cyber Diligence, Portfolio Forensics and Executive Departures for Deal Teams
Cyber Due Diligence Before the Surprise Comes After Close
A data room questionnaire records what management believes about its security, and the evidence shows whether multifactor authentication is enforced, whether the backups restore and whether an intruder is already inside. Global Digital Forensics tests those answers against evidence before signing, examines the portfolio company that discovers an intrusion after closing, and preserves the record when a founder or executive walks out. Findings are written for the investment committee and timed to the deal calendar.
For deal teams, general counsel and operating partners
Private Equity Work, Grouped by the Moment in the Deal
Pick the stage you are at and open the service page behind it. Each one explains the scope, the evidence sources and the deliverables.
Cyber due diligence
Diligence scoped to the deal calendar and the access the seller actually grants, with findings written for the investment committee.
Portfolio security testing
Penetration testing, application review and incident response SLAs for the companies you already own.
Founder and executive separations
Preservation and examination of the records a departing leader or partner leaves behind, before the dispute hardens.
The initial consultation is free, and a senior examiner sets the plan with you on the first call.
Exposure
What a Questionnaire Misses and the Acquirer Inherits
In most deals the cyber risk comes across at closing. An intrusion that was never fully remediated, an incident that was never disclosed or an environment held together by shared administrator credentials comes across with the customer list, and it usually surfaces during integration, when it is most expensive to fix and hardest to price back into the deal.
Diligence windows are short and the answers in the data room are self reported. A questionnaire records what the target's management believes about its security program. Whether multifactor authentication is enforced, whether the backups restore, whether credentials are already circulating and whether an incident was ever detected are questions of evidence, and evidence is what we examine.
Carve outs and roll ups change who is responsible for what. Separating a target from a parent's identity, network and security services, or merging several portfolio companies onto shared infrastructure, opens transitional gaps that are rarely funded in the deal model and rarely owned by anyone after signing.
If signing is weeks away and the data room holds a questionnaire and little else, describe the target and the deadline to a senior examiner and we will say what the window can support.
Scoping
Questions the Engagement Must Answer Before the Vote
- What cyber risk is being acquired, and how much of it has already been realized?
- Which findings change the price, the indemnity, the escrow or the closing conditions?
- What can be established inside the diligence window, and what has to wait until after closing?
- Which remediation items carry a real cost, and over what period will it be paid?
- What would an acquirer of this asset in three years expect to find already fixed?
Services
Before Signing, After Closing and When a Leader Leaves
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Cyber Due Diligence
Assessment of security maturity, breach history, exposure and regulatory risk before signing, delivered against the deal timetable and written for the committee.
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Executive Cyber Risk Advisory
Risk ranking after closing and a remediation plan the investment committee and the portfolio board can actually track.
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Critical Infrastructure & OT Security
An assessment built for the plants, utilities and industrial control systems a target operates, rather than an IT checklist applied to the wrong environment.
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Digital Forensics and Expert Witness Testimony
Examination and testimony when a dispute after closing turns on what was known, taken or concealed before signing.
Context
The Transaction Context the Findings Have to Serve
- Diligence standards
- Cyber has moved from an IT workstream to a standard diligence discipline beside financial, legal and environmental review, and committees expect the findings in a form they can act on before the vote.
- Representations and warranties
- Technical findings shape how security, data and incident representations are drafted, negotiated and, where necessary, backed by escrow.
- Representations and warranties insurance
- Underwriters increasingly ask for evidence that cyber diligence was actually performed before they will price the risk.
- Regulated targets
- Where the target sits in a regulated sector, the diligence has to reach the obligations that will bind the acquirer on day one.
We give the deal team technical findings it can price, so counsel and the sponsor can turn them into indemnities, escrows, closing conditions or a walk away.
Bring the committee’s questions to a free scoping conversation and we will separate the ones evidence can answer from the ones that call for legal judgment.
Related case study
Worldwide Intellectual Property Case
When two employees and a manager left a chemical manufacturer with offices on three continents and emailed its customer database and financial records to their home computers, GDF recovered the deleted messages from their desktops, correlated them with mail server and backup records and supported counsel through discovery and depositions.
Intellectual Property
Define What the Deal Window Can Actually Support
Bring the transaction stage, the decision deadline, the entities and systems in scope, the degree of target cooperation, the data room access you have and the questions the investment committee needs answered. Fees are agreed against the access and the work included, and additional testing or implementation is scoped separately so the committee knows exactly what it is paying for.
The evidence we request can include architecture, identity controls, incident history, the asset inventory, key vendor terms and the records that support management's answers. Where the target will not grant access, we label the findings as document or interview based, so the committee knows the weight of each one.
A committee memo from this work connects an unresolved administrator access issue to its source, its business consequence, the follow up it needs and the person proposed to own it. For a carve out, we separate what the evidence shows about shared services from the access, migration and remediation work the acquirer will take on after closing.
What the committee receives is a clear account of what was examined, what was found and what remains open, so the open items can be priced, escrowed or carried into the first hundred days with an owner attached.
Talk with an examiner
Talk With the Examiners Who Work Deal and Portfolio Matters
Tell us the target or the portfolio company, the stage of the deal and the deadline. A senior examiner will call or write back promptly to check conflicts and outline what the window can support, and the first conversation is free.
Since 1992 · 24/7 response · Court tested experts
Reviewed by Joseph Caruso, Founder, CEO and CTO, CISSP. Last reviewed .