Translating Cyber Risk Into Financial Exposure. Not Technical Noise.
BSC Partners is the M&A cyber advisor for lower middle-market and middle-market private equity firms. We run cyber diligence that tells deal teams what they actually need to know and then rapidly fix the critical findings post-close.
Partner Led
Every engagement. No junior associates running fieldwork
4D Framework℠
Discover. Diligence. Develop. Divest.
The Failures of
Traditional M&A Cyber Diligence
Cyber due diligence wasn’t built for lower and middle-market transactions. It's too slow, too broad, and too out of touch with what deal teams care about.
01. Rebranded Enterprise Assessment
Most cyber due diligence teams take a widely used enterprise framework and call it cyber dd. They run the same scans and questionnaires they'd do for a corporation, hand the deal team a long report, and leave them to figure out the rest.
02. Irrelevant Findings for the Deal Team
The output is a list of technical issues stamped with severity ratings: "Critical," "High," "low." Critical to who? Critical against what threshold? The ratings reflect technical severity in a vacuum. None of it tells the deal team what's material to the transaction or what carries real financial exposure. The deal team is left translating cyber findings into deal terms on their own.
03. Deliver and Disappear
The advisor delivers the report and walks away. The deal team is left holding a list of findings the portfolio company's IT team is now expected to fix on their own. By the next board meeting, the issues are still open.
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what we built instead
The Opposite Approach. Specifically For
Middle-Market Deals.
Traditional Approach
How BSC Operates
Enterprise methodologies applied to deals they weren't built for. Long control checklists with no view of what matters.
Scoped to Material Risk
We focus diligence on the cybersecurity controls directly linked to losses. Not every control gap on the framework checklist. Not every theoretical vulnerability.
Findings rated "Critical / High / Medium / Low" by security practitioners with little deal experience.
Treated as a Modeled Exposure
We quantify cyber the way deal teams model other operating risks -- translated into financial impact, not stamped with generic severity labels.
Report delivered, advisor disappears, IT team inherits the cleanup.
Findings Fixed, Not Handed Off
We don't hand off the report and disappear. Our Rapid Remediation Team closes out the material findings and brings the portfolio company up to a risk profile the sponsor is comfortable with.
how we do it
Four Mandates. The 4D Framework
We screen for the risks that move deals -- in financial terms and without slowing execution. No enterprise frameworks. No 30-page cyber creports. Only what matters.
Blog & Insights
Actionable perspectives on cyber risk, governance, and deal strategy. Stay informed with the latest thinking from our team and industry experts.
Portfolio Risk Benchmarking: The Foundation for More Informed Cyber Diligence
Portfolio Risk Benchmarking gives private equity firms a clear, consistent lens to assess cyber maturity and exposure across all holdings. It lays the groundwork for faster, smarter diligence by turning fragmented data into actionable insights grounded in financial impact and deal context.
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WORK WITH US
Partner With BSC Partners
Lower and middle-market acquisitions inherit material cyber exposure due to smaller IT teams, older systems, and few cyber controls. These deals are the least likely to get cyber diligence because traditional providers price and scope for enterprise.
BSC was built to close that gap. Fast enough to keep pace with your deals, scoped tight enough to not add complexity. We screen for material risk in days, not weeks, and work as an extension of your team.
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