Think about on the brink of spend billions of {dollars} on an acquisition, solely to seek out out that the goal of the acquisition was the sufferer of a number of cyberattacks affecting billions of accounts. One would assume such a state of affairs could be an enormous pink flag that no company board or common counsel would ever neglect, whatever the dimension of the acquisition, however that clarion name doesn’t appear to be heard universally.
That is what occurred across the 2017 revelation of the huge breach of Yahoo uncovered by its sale to Verizon, and it price the search engine firm a $400 million hit to its buy worth. Apparently, nonetheless, cybersecurity and associated technological elements are nonetheless comparatively low on the important due diligence guidelines.
The correct time to start out evaluating the cybersecurity danger profile of an acquisition goal, consultants agree, is early on within the due diligence course of. Too usually due diligence is proscribed to stability sheets, gross sales operations, and excellent authorized obligations, with cybersecurity, compliance, and technical compatibility of safety instruments left to the top of the dialogue, if they’re mentioned in any respect.
“The worth of pre-sign due diligence is to make it possible for firms are assessing all of the related dangers earlier than they signal on the dotted line,” says John Hauser, principal and cyber due diligence chief at Ernst & Younger, in addition to a former FBI particular agent and a former assistant United States Lawyer. “Cyber generally is a main consider deciding whether or not or not a shopper decides to stroll away” from a merger or acquisition.
Early cyber due diligence permits a possible suitor to “negotiate higher phrases via the acquisition worth reductions, or indemnities, or different contractual provisions,” he provides.
At the side of the normal enterprise due diligence, firms are turning to risk intelligence consultants to judge the potential goal’s danger profile, on the lookout for proof that the corporate might need been breached with knowledge on the market on the Darkish Net or maybe has weak controls on different inner operations. Utilizing open supply intelligence (OSINT), he stated, investigators usually can discover proof of a breach, comparable to indicators of leaked credentials, communications between the goal firm infrastructure and any recognized malware households and command and management servers, or different insights.
Different vital intelligence will be gleaned by asking the goal firm to offer knowledge comparable to attestations made to a cyber insurance coverage supplier, supply code, penetration take a look at outcomes, and previous compliance stories. “You are beginning to see extra technical verification, transferring into the pre-sign section,” Hauser says.
Assessing Vulnerabilities
Cyber criminals usually watch mergers and acquisitions exercise, on the lookout for a probably weak goal being acquired by a stronger firm, particularly one which may have a variety of helpful data for the cybercrooks, notes Heather Clauson Haughian, founder and managing companion on the Atlanta-based legislation agency Culhane Meadows. As soon as the acquisition goes via, it might not be unusual for the goal agency to get attacked with the hopes of breaching a weak hyperlink and thus accessing the extra profitable a part of the merged firms.
One other vulnerability happens when organizations with differing compliance necessities be part of, Haughian says. Whereas the buying group is likely to be effectively versed in its personal compliance reporting necessities, it may not have the identical experience with the corporate it acquires.
If the buying firm doesn’t make use of compliance consultants for the acquired firm’s operations, there may very well be a niche in compliance reporting, together with missed alternatives to layer safety controls over the acquired firm, leaving it weak to a cyberattack, she says.
In such circumstances, utilizing a third-party advisory service is beneficial, says Shay Colson, managing companion of cyber diligence at Bellingham, Washington-based agency Coastal Cyber Threat Advisors. An organization executing a bolt-on, add-on, or tuck-in acquisition can have its third-party adviser consider the goal’s safety posture, together with what its program seems to be like, strengths and weaknesses, and present safety device units. “Then you may get views on the targets which might be each goal to the goal and take care of this integration problem,” he says.
Taking Duty
In the end, common counsels want to return on top of things as shortly as doable on cyber danger and cybersecurity. “They’re going to be those who personal cyber danger at their enterprise as a result of if there’s an incident, they’re calling outdoors counsel, they’re coordinating forensics, and so they’re taking a look at regulatory response obligations,” Colson says.
“I feel the extra proactive [general counsels] are, [they are] going to appreciate that cyber danger is a spot the place they’ll really drive worth to the enterprise and allow issues,” he provides. “It is only a matter of time earlier than an increasing number of GCs get on board with that.”
EY’s Hauser stated that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s current proposed guidelines for public firms and different monetary companies organizations may assist boards of administrators to navigate via the cybersecurity due diligence challenges.
There’s a consensus that there’s a rising danger of cybercrimes and that boards must pay better consideration to it, he stated. Courts and regulators are making it explicitly clear that failing to do correct cyber due diligence makes it simpler for a future plaintiff to accuse a board member of negligence. That, mixed with Gensler’s proposed guidelines that put extra private accountability on C-suites and board members, and you’ve got the right storm for cybersecurity consultants to take a extra lively position in board-level selections, he notes.
