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Threatsys

Cyber Security Audit & Review

Root Cause Analysis

Post-incident forensics that establishes what actually happened and why.

Every engagement includes manual validation, a two audience report and free re-testing.

Get a scoped quote+91 96682 00222

What this actually is

After an incident there is enormous pressure to declare it closed. Systems are back, the immediate fire is out, and everyone wants to move on. That is exactly when organisations get hit again through the same door.

Root cause analysis establishes what actually happened rather than what people assume happened. How they got in, how long they were there, what they reached, and which control was supposed to catch it.

We produce findings that stand up to a regulator, an insurer or a board, and we separate the immediate cause from the systemic one, because those need different fixes.

What we go after

  • Timeline reconstruction across all available telemetry
  • Initial access vector determination
  • Dwell time and lateral movement analysis
  • Data access and exfiltration assessment
  • Control failure analysis at each stage
  • Systemic and process contributing factors
  • Regulatory notification support

How we run it

  1. 01

    Understand the business

    What you do, what would genuinely hurt if it stopped, and how much risk your board will carry.

  2. 02

    Assess

    People, process and technology together, because attackers do not respect the boundary between them.

  3. 03

    Benchmark and rank

    Where you sit against your peers and your regulator, with findings ranked by real exposure.

  4. 04

    Roadmap

    A sequenced plan with costs attached, so the business case writes itself.

What you receive

  • Incident timeline with supporting evidence
  • Root cause and contributing factor analysis
  • Control failure assessment
  • Remediation plan addressing cause and symptom
  • Report suitable for regulator, insurer or board

Who needs this

Any organisation that has had an incident, and any regulated entity required to determine and report root cause.

How long it takes

One to four weeks depending on evidence availability.

Standards this satisfies

  • NIST SP 800-61
  • CERT-In
  • ISO 27035
  • DPDP Act

Why it matters

There is a gap between knowing you have a security problem and knowing which one to solve first. Advisory work exists to close that gap: an independent view of where the risk actually sits, expressed in terms a board can act on and a budget can be built around.

The other reason is availability. Most organisations do not need a full time security leader, but they do need someone to ask before making a decision rather than after. The cost of the wrong architecture choice, or the wrong vendor, dwarfs the cost of the conversation that would have prevented it.

Choose how you want this delivered

Most of the price difference between quotes comes down to this one choice, and it is rarely explained. Pick one to see what it covers, what it suits and what it costs you.

A defined number of days a month with a named advisor who keeps context between conversations. This is what most organisations actually need: not a large project, but someone to ask before making a decision rather than after.

Choose this when

  • Decisions arriving faster than you can hire for
  • You need continuity rather than another report
  • Board or committee reporting on a regular cycle

Effort and cost

Monthly, with a defined day allocation. Far cheaper than a hire and available immediately.

Scope it yourself, before you call anyone

Answer a few questions and you get an indicative number, the working behind it and what your answers tell us. It runs in your browser, so nothing you type reaches us.

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Which framework are you going for?

What we look for, and keep finding

These are the classes of problem this work exists to surface. Not every engagement finds all of them, but these are the ones that turn up often enough to be worth naming.

  • Capability that does not match the risk

    Heavy investment in one area and nothing in another, usually reflecting what a previous incident or a previous hire cared about rather than where the current exposure sits.

  • No owner for the important things

    Ask who owns third party risk, or identity, and the answer is a committee. Controls without a named owner degrade quietly and predictably.

  • Reporting that does not support a decision

    Dashboards full of counts that never answer the question a board actually asks, which is whether we are more or less exposed than last quarter and what it would cost to change that.

  • Unmanaged supplier concentration

    Several critical services resting on one provider, with no assessment of what happens if it becomes unavailable or compromised.

  • Plans that have never been tested

    Incident response and continuity documents that read well and have never been rehearsed. The first rehearsal always finds something, which is the point of having one.

Who runs your engagement

A practitioner, not a presentation

Advisory work is led by someone who has run security operations rather than only advised on them. The test we apply to our own recommendations is whether the person making them has had to live with a decision like it.

Questions we get asked

We already recovered. Can you still work out what happened?

Usually, though it gets harder. Logs age out and rebuilt systems lose evidence. Even after a full rebuild there is normally enough in network telemetry, cloud audit logs and backups to answer the important questions.

Will this be used against us by our regulator?

An honest analysis is far better received than a vague one. Regulators respond badly to organisations that cannot explain what happened. We write it accurately and we help you present it.

Often scoped alongside

Ready to scope your root cause analysis?

Thirty minutes with a senior engineer, and you leave with a written scope and indicative effort.

Book a 30-min consultation+91 96682 00222