What Does Pythia Cyber Do For the Investor (4 of 4)

(This post is the fourth in a series of four; the first post is general and the other posts are each directed at different roles: general, CEO, CISO.)

This post is directed at anyone tasked with assess a potential investment or acquisition. Once upon a time, Mergers & Acquisitions were the province of MBAs, with the occasional domain expert. Now it is hard to image effective Due Diligence without a hefty cybersecurity component. We provide that component.We give you same kind of assessment and assurance in the cybersecurity domain that has long been standard in the finance domain.

Pythia Cyber gives you much more than the usual letter grades on a "cybersecurity report card." We show you where the prospect is on a cybersecurity continuum and estimate what it would take to elevate their cybersecurity to whatever level you deem to be an appropriate investment.

Our secret sauce is that we have a behavioral string to our bow: cybersecurity is as much about human behavior as it is about technology. As we like to say, "bad behavior beats good technology." Furthermore, you manage people much more than you manage technology. If you are buying into a company, then a significant amount of what you are buying is the staff and the corporate culture.

You have reports with numbers on them to help you put a value on the sales force, the C-suite, HR and just about everyone but the cybersecurity team. We can fix that for both technical effectiveness and  openness to change. Letter grades are very demo-friendly but they are of limited value when deciding whether or not to buy and at what price. On the other hand, a project plan to elevate the target's cybersecurity to acceptable levels, including timelines and budgets, is not very demo-friendly but is very useful in supporting those decisions.

Cybersecurity readiness can be described in business terms and understood by business people. Any given program is either worth the money it costs or it is not. Any given program can either be upgraded at a reasonable cost or it cannot. When you consider an investment you can consider cybersecurity along with payroll, physical assets and upcoming financial liabilities.We can help.