Subsidiary Monitoring in cybersecurity refers to the continuous oversight and assessment of the cybersecurity posture, risks, and compliance of acquired companies, affiliated entities, or business units that operate somewhat independently. Its purpose is to ensure that their digital assets, operations, and adherence to security policies align with the parent organization's standards, prevent inherited or new vulnerabilities from impacting the broader enterprise, and maintain enterprise-wide compliance and resilience.

Conversely, M&A Due Diligence in cybersecurity is the pre-acquisition process of thoroughly investigating a target company's cybersecurity posture, controls, vulnerabilities, and potential liabilities before a merger or acquisition is finalized. This critical assessment helps the acquiring entity understand the cyber risks they might inherit, assess the target's compliance gaps, identify potential data breaches or reputational damage, and factor these findings into deal valuation, terms, and post-merger integration planning.

ThreatNG provides a comprehensive and continuous solution for M&A Due Diligence and ongoing Subsidiary Monitoring by offering an objective, external "cyber health check" that mirrors an attacker's view of a company's digital footprint. It is uniquely positioned to unveil hidden liabilities and ensure ongoing compliance across the extended enterprise.

1. External Discovery: ThreatNG performs purely external, unauthenticated discovery using no connectors. This is paramount for both use cases as it systematically identifies all external-facing digital assets, including those unknown internally to the target or subsidiary.

• Example (M&A Due Diligence): ThreatNG can rapidly uncover forgotten, publicly exposed testing servers or shadow IT cloud instances belonging to a target company that are not documented in their provided asset lists, revealing potential hidden liabilities before acquisition.

• Example (Subsidiary Monitoring): ThreatNG automatically discovers new domains, subdomains, or cloud services launched by an acquired subsidiary that were not formally reported to the parent company's central IT, ensuring immediate visibility into expanding attack surface beyond the traditional perimeter.

2. External Assessment: ThreatNG provides various external assessment ratings that quantify the cyber risk introduced by M&A targets and existing subsidiaries, offering verifiable data for risk assessment and ongoing oversight:

• Cyber Risk Exposure: ThreatNG assesses the overall "cyber risk exposure" of the target/subs based on externally visible parameters like certificates, subdomain headers, vulnerabilities, and sensitive ports. This is crucial for understanding potential security debt during M&A or for continuous risk profiling of subsidiaries.

• Breach & Ransomware Susceptibility: ThreatNG determines "Breach and ransomware Susceptibility" by analyzing the external attack surface and digital risk intelligence, including dark web presence (compromised credentials, ransomware events, and gang activity). This flags high-risk targets for M&A and highlights critical threats for ongoing subsidiary monitoring.

• Data Leak Susceptibility: ThreatNG identifies "Data Leak Susceptibility" by finding exposed credentials, sensitive files in public cloud storage, or inadvertently committed code secrets. This highlights potential data privacy liabilities for both pre-acquisition targets and existing subsidiaries.

• Supply Chain & Third-Party Exposure: ThreatNG evaluates the "Supply Chain & Third-Party Exposure" for the target/subsidiary's vendors (their Nth parties), by enumerating vendor technologies from DNS and subdomains, technology stack, and cloud/SaaS exposure. This is vital for understanding the whole, cascading risk ecosystem being acquired or managed.

• Brand Damage Susceptibility: ThreatNG assesses "Brand Damage Susceptibility" by monitoring for existing brand impersonations, negative news, or relevant ESG violations. This indicates potential reputational liabilities that could impact the combined entity's value.

3. Reporting: ThreatNG provides clear, actionable reports essential for M&A teams, integration leads, and ongoing governance:

• Security Ratings Report: This report offers an objective, high-level security score for the target/subsidiary's external posture, providing a quick, independent assessment.

• Prioritized Report: This report highlights critical external vulnerabilities or hidden assets as high-priority risks, allowing for quick remediation planning during M&A or ongoing operational security.

• U.S. SEC Filings (DarCache 8K): ThreatNG can show a "U.S. SEC Filings" report for publicly traded targets/subsidiaries, providing additional financial risk context relevant to breaches and material events.

• External GRC Assessment Mappings: ThreatNG provides "a continuous, outside-in evaluation of an organization's Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) posture" and maps findings directly to relevant GRC frameworks. This directly supports compliance risk assessment during M&A and ongoing compliance monitoring for subsidiaries.

4. Continuous Monitoring: ThreatNG offers "continuous monitoring of external attack surface, digital risk, and security ratings of all organizations". This is crucial for M&A (up to closing) and ongoing subsidiary oversight, ensuring dynamic risk validation.

• Example (M&A Due Diligence): ThreatNG can continuously monitor the target's external posture up to the closing date, ensuring no new critical vulnerabilities emerge that could derail the deal or become an immediate post-acquisition issue.

• Example (Subsidiary Monitoring): ThreatNG provides real-time alerts if a subsidiary's external attack surface suddenly expands (e.g., new exposed cloud service) or a critical vulnerability appears, ensuring the parent company has immediate visibility and can enforce security standards centrally.

5. Investigation Modules: ThreatNG's investigation modules allow deep dives into specific external risk areas of the target/subsidiary:

• Sensitive Code Exposure: This type of exposure pinpoints hardcoded credentials, API keys, or proprietary code exposed in the target/subsidiary's public repositories, representing significant intellectual property or access risks.

• Cloud and SaaS Exposure: Identifies the target/subsidiary's sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud services and SaaS applications, assessing for misconfigurations (e.g., open cloud buckets) or insecure API endpoints. This is vital for understanding their cloud footprint and potential data liabilities.

• Dark Web Presence: Monitors for mentions of the target/subsidiary, associated ransomware events, or compromised credentials on the dark web, indicating existing or imminent breaches that could impact the acquisition or ongoing operations.

6. Intelligence Repositories (DarCache): ThreatNG's DarCache provides comprehensive external context and threat intelligence to inform risk assessment and prediction:

• DarCache Vulnerability (NVD, EPSS, KEV, PoC Exploits): Informs on the real-world exploitability and likelihood of vulnerabilities found on the target/subsidiary's external assets. If ThreatNG identifies a KEV on a target's system, it flags a known, actively exploited weakness that needs immediate attention and heavily impacts risk assessment.

• DarCache 8K: Provides context from their SEC Form 8-Ks for publicly traded targets/subsidiaries, revealing publicly declared cybersecurity incidents or other material events influencing their risk profile.

• DarCache ESG: Discovers "environmental, social, and governance (ESG) violations" that can impact the target/subsidiary's reputation and lead to regulatory fines. These violations are directly relevant to overall M&A risk assessment and ongoing compliance.

Complementary Solutions: ThreatNG's external insights create powerful synergies with other M&A and GRC solutions:

• M&A Due Diligence Platforms: ThreatNG's objective is to provide external cybersecurity assessment data that can be directly integrated into specialized M&A due diligence platforms, providing a critical cybersecurity risk component to the overall deal assessment.

• GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) Platforms: ThreatNG's findings on the target/subsidiary's external compliance gaps (e.g., exposed PII in misconfigured cloud storage, lack of proper email authentication) can be fed into GRC systems to inform post-acquisition compliance remediation plans and ensure ongoing enterprise-wide compliance.

• Cyber Insurance Underwriters: ThreatNG's detailed security ratings and vulnerability insights for a target company or a subsidiary can be leveraged by cyber insurance providers to more accurately assess risk and potentially adjust policy terms before or after an acquisition or for annual renewals, leading to better-informed underwriting decisions.