You are about to inherit someone else's security debt, or be valued on your own. A point-in-time adversarial assessment surfaces the inherited risk a questionnaire misses, on the deal timeline, with output the board and deal team can act on.
File · Answer first
The whole value of cyber due diligence is timing: it converts inherited security debt from a liability you already own into a number you can still negotiate. A questionnaire and a data room report what the target chose to disclose. A point-in-time adversarial assessment, run on the deal clock against the target's real posture, reports what an attacker would find whether or not anyone wrote it down: the forgotten asset, the prior compromise, the access nobody mapped. Below is what that assessment actually surfaces, when to run it against the deal calendar, and how the output reaches both the board and the technical team.
File · What cyber
The risk in a deal is rarely in the documents the target hands you. It is in the assets and access nobody on the deal team knew to ask about. An external-facing adversarial assessment finds the things a self-reported questionnaire structurally misses.
File · Pre-close or
Both have a place, and they answer different questions. Pre-close is leverage: findings inform valuation, reps and warranties, and the remediation you require as a condition of close. The assessment runs against the external footprint and whatever access the deal allows, sized to fit between LOI and signing. Post-close is integration: a full internal assessment of the acquired environment before you connect it to your network, so you do not merge a live compromise into your own. If you only get one, take pre-close, because that is the only window where a finding is still a negotiating point.
Operator Note
The fastest way to blow up an integration is to bridge networks before anyone has tested the acquired environment for an active foothold. Adversaries target the smaller, less-mature company specifically because they know it is about to be wired into a larger one. Test the boundary before you trust it.
“Every deal team models the financial debt to the dollar. The security debt is just as real, it is just invisible until someone adversarial goes looking. We go looking on your timeline, before the number is final.”
File · Output the
The deliverable is built for two audiences. The deal team and board get a risk read in plain terms: what was found, what it means for the deal, what it would cost to remediate, and what should be a condition of close. The acquired technical team gets the attack-path detail to fix it. We do not retain client testing artifacts as portfolio material, which matters in a deal context where confidentiality is not optional. The rationale is on why we publish no case studies.
File · Speed under
Deals do not wait for a four-week engagement. We scope cyber due diligence to the window you have between LOI and signing and prioritize the questions that move the deal: external exposure first, then identity and crown-jewel access. The senior operators who run the assessment are working a defined surface against a hard date, and Bailey leads scoping so the engagement is sized to the deal, not to a generic template. For a deeper, objective-based read of how an adversary would move once inside, the work extends into red teaming.
File · FAQ
Q1 What does cyber due diligence cover?
An adversarial assessment of the target's real security posture: unpatched and forgotten assets, identity sprawl and over-privileged access, the exposed external footprint an attacker sees, and any evidence of prior or ongoing compromise. It surfaces the inherited risk a self-reported questionnaire or data room cannot, and frames it for the deal team.
Q2 How fast can you turn it around for a deal?
We scope to the window between LOI and signing and prioritize the questions that move the deal, external exposure first. Engagements are sized to the deal clock rather than a generic template, and Bailey leads scoping so the timeline is realistic. Tell us the date on the scoping call and we work backward from it.
Q3 Pre-close or post-close?
Pre-close buys leverage; post-close buys safe integration. If you can only run one, run pre-close, because that is the only window where a finding is still a price you can negotiate rather than a problem you already own.
Talk to an Operator
Real operators. Real attack paths. Real business impact. Talk to us about your security goals.
Related
External exposure, adversarial depth, and the enterprise-scale program that surrounds an integration.
Manual, operator-led testing across the full surface.
What the target looks like to an attacker, mapped on the deal clock.
Objective-based adversary simulation for crown-jewel access.
Testing scoped for complex, multi-entity organizations.