- Guaranteed one-hour response with dedicated emergency line
- Pre-established knowledge of your infrastructure and regulatory obligations — eliminating the discovery phase
- Incident response plan developed and tested via tabletop exercises
- Pre-drafted notification templates customised for your jurisdictions
- Annual threat briefing and plan review
- Established forensic, legal, and law enforcement relationships ready for activation
- Retainer fees credited against any incident engagement
Specialized Advisory
Incident Response
Emergency cybersecurity advisory for institutional investors facing active breaches, ransomware events, and regulatory notification obligations. Immediate mobilisation with established forensic and legal partnerships across EU jurisdictions.
Why Institutional Investors Need Specialised Incident Response
When a cybersecurity incident strikes a Private Equity portfolio company or Family Office, consequences extend far beyond technical disruption. Aransomware event triggers a cascade of financial, legal, regulatory, and reputational consequences rippling across the fund structure. Investors demand disclosure. Regulators require notification. Counterparties question reliability. The difference between containment and catastrophe comes down to what happens in the first hours — and whether the responding team understands the institutional context.
The first 72 hours determine an incident's trajectory. GDPR requires supervisory authority notification within 72 hours of awareness. For NIS2 reporting obligations, timelines are more aggressive: 24-hour early warning followed by 72-hour detailed notification. These deadlines run from the moment of awareness regardless of investigation status, and failure constitutes an independent regulatory violation. Organisations without pre-established notification procedures inevitably miss them.
Ransomware and breaches carry direct impact on portfolio value. Extended downtime, customer attrition, fines, and litigation costs decline enterprise value — flowing directly to fund NAV and investor returns. ForFamily Offices, breaches involving principal identity documents and financial records create risks extending to physical safety and generational wealth structures.
Standard IT providers fail in genuine crisis situations. They lack the investigative methodology, legal awareness, regulatory knowledge, and crisis discipline that effective incident response demands. They cannot advise on ransom implications, coordinate with law enforcement, manageboard and investor communications, or navigate parallel notification obligations. Intarmour provides this through advisory integrating technical response with institutional understanding.
Response Capabilities
Ransomware Response & Negotiation
Immediate containment to halt lateral movement. Threat actor identification to assess adversary credibility and decryption likelihood. Ransomware payment advisory including sanctions screening, legal exposure analysis, and alternative recovery pathways. We ensure decisions are made with complete situational awareness and legal counsel.
Data Breach Investigation
Methodical investigation of exposure scope, affected records, and adversary access timeline. Forensic evidence preservation to chain-of-custody standards. Impact assessment identifying affected subjects, compromised categories, and downstream risks. Findings documented for regulatory reporting and governance.
Regulatory Notification Support
Mandatory notifications under GDPR Article 33, NIS2, andDORA. Multi-jurisdictional notification management for organisations spanning multiple EU member states. Pre-drafted templates adapted to each incident, ensuring accuracy and mandatory timeline compliance.
Crisis Communications Advisory
Strategic counsel for boards, Investment Committees, LPs, and portfolio management during active incidents. Investor disclosure balancing transparency with investigation protection. Media preparation and internal communications maintaining confidence while preserving information compartmentalisation.
Forensic Investigation Coordination
Coordination with accredited forensic laboratories and certified investigators across European jurisdictions. Evidence collection, preservation, and analysis supporting regulatory compliance, law enforcement referrals, and civil litigation. Findings translated into board-level reporting.
Business Continuity Planning
Rapid impact assessment and continuity activation to restore critical functions while investigation proceeds. Recovery prioritised by financial materiality and regulatory obligation. Post-incident review and plan revision incorporating lessons learned.
Response Timeline
1
First 4 Hours
Triage & Containment
Scope and severity assessment. Containment to isolate affected systems and halt lateral movement. Volatile forensic evidence preservation. Response team assembly and secure communications outside the compromised environment. Preliminary regulatory notification determination.
2
4 – 24 Hours
Investigation & Assessment
Forensic investigation: attack vector, dwell time, full scope of affected systems and data. Exfiltration indicators assessed.NIS2 24-hour early warning where applicable. Board and investor impact briefing. Backup integrity evaluation. External forensic and legal engagement as warranted.
3
24 – 72 Hours
Notification & Recovery
GDPR Article 33 breach notification. NIS2 72-hour detailed notification. System recovery from verified backups or rebuilt infrastructure. Article 34 data subject notification assessment. Law enforcement coordination where appropriate. Ongoing board and investor communication.
4
72+ Hours
Remediation & Reporting
Full restoration and operational verification. Root cause analysis. Vulnerability remediation. NIS2 one-month final report. Post-incident board or Investment Committee review. Security architecture improvements and updated incident response procedures.
Case Study
Family Office Ransomware Event
A single Family Office managing substantial private wealth was targeted by a sophisticated ransomware group. The adversary gained access through a compromised external accounting advisor credential, moved laterally over ten days, then deployed ransomware across all systems — including wealth management platforms, document management, and email. The adversary had accessed file shares containing principal identity documents, financial records, and estate planning materials.
Regulatory notification obligations spanned two EU member states. The principals faced the prospect of their most sensitive information being published on a dark web leak site.
Intarmour was engaged within one hour of discovery. Containment within six hours confirmed backup systems intact and uncompromised — eliminating any operational need to consider ransom payment. Data recovery commenced within eight hours, critical systems restored within 36 hours. Regulatory notification to both jurisdictions completed within 48 hours. Forensic investigation determined the adversary's objective was encryption for ransom rather than data exfiltration, materially reducing the risk assessment.
Post-incident remediation addressed root causes: inadequate third-party access controls, absence of network segmentation, and insufficient monitoring. The family office emerged with significantly strengthened architecture and established incident response procedures for future events.
Emergency Response Protocol
How to Reach Intarmour for Emergency Response
Available to both retainer clients and organisations requiring immediate assistance. Contact us through our secure contact channel with “INCIDENT — IMMEDIATE” to trigger emergency protocol. Retainer clients: guaranteed one-hour response via dedicated line. Emergency-only: initial contact within four hours on business days.
What to Do First
- Document the time you became aware — this starts the regulatory notification clock
- Isolate affected systems but do not power off — volatile memory contains critical forensic evidence
- Establish communications outside the compromised environment
- Identify your most recent known-good backup and verify backup infrastructure is disconnected from affected systems
- Restrict knowledge to essential personnel until a communications strategy is established
What Not to Do
- Do not negotiate with the threat actor without professional guidance — early communications set the tone and cannot be retracted
- Do not wipe or rebuild systems before forensic preservation
- Do not make public statements until communications and legal counsel are coordinated
- Do not assume the adversary has left — many maintain persistent access and monitor response activities
- Do not pay a ransom without sanctions screening, legal review, and jurisdictional analysis
Retainer vs. Emergency Engagement
Recommended
Pre-Engagement Retainer
Emergency-Only Engagement
- Four-hour response on business days, best-effort outside hours
- Initial discovery phase required before substantive response (two to four hours)
- Response plan developed during the crisis rather than in advance
- Notification templates prepared ad hoc under time pressure
- Forensic and legal partnerships engaged on demand, potentially introducing delays
- Time-and-materials at emergency rates
Organisations without pre-established response capabilities experience materially worse outcomes. The cost of a retainer is a fraction of the additional losses from delayed response, missed regulatory deadlines, and uncoordinated crisis management.
Discuss Retainer OptionsReady for institutional-grade
cybersecurity?
Confidential assessments for qualified Private Equity and Family Office entities requiring sovereign defense infrastructure.