Assessing and consolidating domains and DNS providers are crucial “pre” and “post” M&A deal priorities. You are not only buying the valuable assets, you are also buying the cyber security risk.
In this paper we discuss:
- How to maximize deal value and mitigate post-close risks and costs
- The background problems: Hidden risks and network complexity
- Pre-deal due diligence assessment and planning
- Post-deal consolidation and integration execution
- M&A Best Practices: A Modern Approach to Empower Teams
Introduction
How due diligence teams can maximize deal value and mitigate post-close risk and cost.
There are many blogs, webinars, and how-to guides about acquiring domain assets – mostly centered on ownership rights, title, and brand protection during the M&A process. They are mainly useful to legal counsel, finance, and marketing but overlook a gaping area of risk and cost containment.
We’re talking about enterprise security and the network operations functions tasked with managing the DNS networks, mitigating risk, and managing integration costs after the deal closes.
In this paper, we’ll discuss the known security and operations problems in acquiring domain and DNS assets, and effective ways to solve them. We’ll present a modern, best practices approach for companies active in M&A from pre-deal audit and assessment to post-deal consolidation.
Executive Summary
You are not just buying the assets – you are acquiring cyber security risk.
M&A teams face operational and IT risk when acquiring domain assets and the related DNS networks. The acquirer has a limited time frame to assume ownership of the domains and integrate them into network operations. These domains will have latent operational and security issues, unaddressed by the target company. The acquiring party does not have visibility into the true state, nor will it have any means to assess its security posture. The purchaser will be acquiring all the cyber risk and operational deficiencies associated with the target assets – and it will be largely blind.