One of the biggest challenges that our M&A clients face is discovering what networks look like, how they are interconnected and what assets are priorities in their newly acquired environments. Sure, you bought the company and the ink is drying on the contracts — but now you have to fold their network into yours, make sure they meet your security standards and double check to make sure you know what’s out there.
That’s where the trouble begins. Because, in many cases, the result is “ask the IT folks”. You know, the already overworked, newly acquired, untrusted and now very nervous IT staff of the company you just bought. Even if they are honest and expedient, they often forget some parts of the environment or don’t know themselves that parts exist…
Thus, we get brought in, as a part of our Information Security Mergers & Acquisitions practice. Our job is usually to discover assets, map the networks and perform security assessments to identify gaps that don’t meet the acquiring company’s policies. Given that we have had to do this so often, we have designed a great new technique for performing these type of mapping and asset identification engagements. For us, instead of asking the humans, we simply ask the machines. We accumulate the router, switch, firewall and other device configurations and then leverage TigerTrax’s unique analytics capabilities to quickly establish network instances, interconnections, prioritized network hosts & segments, common configuration mistakes, etc. “en masse”. TigerTrax then outputs that data for the MSI analysts, who can quickly perform their assessments, device reviews and inventories — armed with real-world data about the environment!
This approach has been winning us client kudos again and again!
Want to discuss our M&A practice and the unique ways that TigerTrax and MSI can help you before, during and after a merger or acquisition? Give us a call at (614) 351-1237 or drop us a line at info (at) microsolved /dot/ com. We’d be happy to schedule a FREE, no commitment & no pressure call with our Customer Champions & our security engineers.