Our Approach
Make Cyber Risk Clear, Comparable, and Quantifiable in Every Transaction
Built specifically for financial sponsors, the BSC 4D℠ M&A Cyber Framework has been refined through years of transaction experience – across industries, deal types, and investment strategies. Our repeatable and scalable system gives sponsors a way to quantify risk, prioritize oversight, and protect value from acquisition through exit.
We’ve applied this model to transactions across healthcare, manufacturing, tech, and services – each time adapting it to the firm’s deal cadence, risk tolerance, and portfolio composition.
Structured, but not rigid. Repeatable, but always tailored.
Overview
Before you evaluate a single acquisition, you need to know where you stand. This portfolio-wide assessment maps the cyber maturity and financial exposure of each portfolio company. With that baseline in place, you can evaluate future targets faster, spot portfolio exposures immediately, and make more informed decisions across the deal lifecycle.
Details
Instead of broad enterprise cybersecurity frameworks, you get a baseline that's purpose-built for sponsors:
- Portfolio-wide Scope: Every company measured consistently, giving you a single source of truth across the portfolio.
- Quantified Results: Cyber exposure expressed in financial terms, not technical jargon.
- Benchmarking Power: Establishes the baseline that future targets can be compared aganst in days, not weeks.
- Credited Cost: Functions as a retainer that offsets future diligence work, turning the upfront assessment into a pre-investment rather than an added expense.
Outcomes
Sponsor-Wide Maturity Dashboard to compare holdings and flag outliers
FAIR-Based risk quantification across all holdings to focus oversight and investment
Deal Team Benchmarks to evaluate future targets in the context of existing holdings
Board and LP Briefs that translate technical findings into clear oversight and reporting insights
Overview
When you're pressed for time in diligence, you don't need a 100-page technical report.
You need the few risks that truly move the deal. Cyber screening quantifies a target's cyber exposure in dollar terms, showing how risk impacts valuation, structure, and insurability. You also get the added context of seeing how the target compares to your portfolio so you don't have to wonder what "good enough" looks like anymore.
Details
Your diligence stays fast and repeatable, so you can apply it to every deal without slowing the process.
- Deal Focused Scope: The assessment zeroes in on controls that actually drive losses - not the broad "best practices" built for enterprises.
- Fast Turnaround: Get findings within 5-7 days, not weeks
- Investor Focus: Results expressed in financial terms and ready for IC discussion, not technical noise
- Scalable Cost: Priced under $10k per deal and credited against the cost of the portfolio assessment
Outcomes
Clear sponsor-level view of the target's most material cyber risks
Quantified loss exposure to anchor valuation and risk discussions
Direct comparison to your portfolio benchmark to spot outliers quickly
Deal-specific recommendations that focus only on issues worth deeper review
Strategic Readout and ongoing deal support, including supporting deal counsel and R&W underwriting
Overview
Once the deal is done, the priority shifts to ongoing oversight that proves companies are maturing and risks are being reduced.
Portfolio Oversight gives sponsors a portfolio-wide view of cyber posture and progress over time. By pairing proactive threat monitoring with clear tracking of risk reduction, you gain early visibility into emerging issues and confidence that maturity is advancing across all holdings — protecting value well beyond the close.
Details
With Portfolio Oversight, you get sponsor-level visibility that portfolio IT teams can't provide:
- Unified Oversight: A single framework applied across all holdings, so you measure and track portfolio-wide maturity instead of dealing with siloed IT reports.
- Actionable Monitoring: Early detection of threat signals across the portfolio, from dark web chatter to brand impersonation, helps surface risks before they turn into business impact.
- Exit Positioning: Builds a defensible, sponsor-ready narrative that demonstrates control maturity and risk reduction to buyers.
Outcomes
Quarterly Portfolio Scorecards to track maturity, risk posture, and organizational progress
Continuous threat monitoring including dark web forums, brand fraud, executive impersonation, and other potential breach signals
Sponsor-Level Escalation Briefs for identified threats requiring executive attention
Year-over-Year measurement of portfolio-wide risk reduction, control maturity, and threat activity
Overview
At exit, every gap becomes a negotiation point and every improvement strengthens evaluation.
Divestiture Preparation validates controls, finalizes remaining gaps, and packages a clear risk narrative that builds buyer confidence. The focus shifts from fixing problems to presenting a defensible maturity story, giving sponsors the proof points to reduce friction with buyers and protect deal value / momentum.
Details
With Divestiture Preparation, you get the tools to present cyber maturity as a value story, not a risk factor:
- Exit-Ready Validation: Confirm critical controls are in place and defensible.
- Buyer-Facing Documentation: Formal attestations, clean Q&A responses, and supporting evidence to streamline diligence requests.
- Low Lift at Exit: Sponsors engaged throughout the 4D Framework already have ths foundation in place, requiring minimal extra effort when it's time to sell.
Outcomes
Exit-Readiness Brief detailing current posture and proof points for buyers
Cyber Maturity Attestation with supporting documentation to satisfy buyer diligence requests
Strategic Risk Narrative for inclusion in investor decks, CIMs, or other buyer-facing materials
Deal support for legal, insurance, and buyer teams evaluating cyber-related disclosures and risks
case studies
The 4D Framework at Work
Every deal is different, but the stakes are always high. These case studies show how we apply our sponsor-aligned 4D framework to uncover material risks, provide clarity, and protect value across the transaction lifecycle.
From fast-moving carve-outs to sector-specific rollups, each example highlights real findings, strategic insight, and tangible outcomes — delivered at the speed and precision M&A demands.
The Challenge
The sponsor was scaling through a roll-up strategy: multiple back-to-back acquisitions that would all be under a shared operating model. But that efficiency came with a tradeoff. Minimal time for deep diligence. Cybersecurity reviews, in particular, threatened to slow execution and introduce friction. With competing bids always a possibility, the firm needed a way to assess cyber risk that aligned with how they buy: fast, focused, and repeatable.
BSC Involvement
We conducted our cyber screening in 5-days, focused on finding and quantifying material risk instead of cataloging every cybersecurity finding. We created an investor-focused report mapping findings to financial exposure, deal terms, and recommended actions.
Key Finding
The assessment found vulnerabilities in manufacturing systems that were exposed to the internet. These findings were material to the deal due to the historic use of the vulnerabilities in ransomware attacks. If exploited, all production would be stopped. That translated into a projected $3.7M exposure, representing 19% of adjusted EBITDA.
The Outcome
The sponsor adjusted terms to include a $1.5M holdback and secured pre-close remediation for the identified vulnerabilities without delaying the transaction. Cyber insurance limits were revised to account for the $3.7M modeled loss, protecting against the known downside.
Takeaway
Cyber diligence needs to deliver risk-relevant answers on a timeline that matches how the firm moves. In this case, a structured screening approach provided the sponsor with decision-ready data without turning over every stone.
Portfolio Value Impact
The sponsor now uses this screening approach to benchmark each new target against the platform’s broader security maturity and quantified risk exposure. It enables more informed decisions: flagging when risks are acceptable, when they’re outliers, and when they require action pre-close. More than a speed play, it’s a framework for applying consistent risk tolerance across a high-velocity investment strategy.
