Building a Value-Generating Cybersecurity Portfolio Oversight Program

The expectations for cybersecurity portfolio oversight are changing. While 79% of private equity (PE) firms report engaging in some level of portfolio oversight, these efforts are typically limited to pre-deal due diligence and/or ad-hoc cybersecurity efforts that are not consistently applied across the entire portfolio.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal last year, this approach is no longer sufficient to protect investments and reassure investors. The evolving cyber threat landscape poses significant financial and operational risks to not only portfolio companies (PortCos), but equally to sponsors and investors.

Instead, it has become imperative that private equity firms institute a programmatic approach to portfolio oversight, meaning oversight that is formally governed, applied consistently, and grows valuations.

In our white paper, 4 Myths to Cyber Portfolio Oversight, we introduced this concept of a programmatic approach to portfolio oversight to meet increased investor expectations for cybersecurity as well as safeguard and grow the valuation of investments.

However, even if firms have the necessary buy-in to implement a programmatic approach to cybersecurity portfolio oversight, it is difficult to know how to begin.

Our latest white paper, Building a Value-Generating Cybersecurity Portfolio Oversight Program | A Guide to Protecting Your Investments and Growing Your Valuation, aims to further expand upon this concept by defining 13 elements of a programmatic approach and the key benefits of incorporating them into your cybersecurity oversight program. In doing so, this will help serve as a launching pad for firms implementing a programmatic approach to cybersecurity portfolio oversight.

The 13 elements comprise three themes:

• Managing risk
• Creating value
• Governance

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How we help

ACA’s new portfolio oversight solution, ACA Vantage for Cyber, can provide ongoing visibility to monitor and oversee your portfolio companies’ cyber health, giving you control to navigate risk, add value, and gain a competitive advantage. 

Powered by ACA Aponix^®, ACA Vantage for Cyber combines our renowned advisory service with our award-winning regulatory technology, ComplianceAlpha^®, and our exclusive "RealRisk" risk assessment methodology.

ACA Vantage for Cyber will help you to:

• Align your cybersecurity oversight program to investor needs by leveraging best practices developed working with over 100 PM firms on oversight.
• Save time with instant access to assessment results and the status of related remediation efforts.
• Keep stakeholders informed and direct resources where they are needed most.
• Uncover your firm’s risk from your investments from the fund level all the way down to individual cyber capabilities at individual portfolio companies.

Reach out to your ACA consultant, or contact us to find out how we can help you protect your portfolio.