The Big Firms Handle 500 Cases a Year. We Handle Yours.
When your cyber insurance carrier assigns a forensics vendor after a breach, they are usually pulling from a panel that includes names like Kivu, CrowdStrike Services, Kroll, Stroz Friedberg and similar large firms. These are established organizations with hundreds of examiners across multiple offices. They are on every major carrier's panel for good reason: they have the capacity to handle volume.
But capacity and attention are not the same thing. And for a mid-market organization experiencing its first breach, the difference matters.
This is not an argument against large vendors. They do excellent work and they serve a critical role in the insurance ecosystem. This is an argument for understanding what each model offers so you can make an informed choice about who handles your incident.
How Large Panel Vendors Work
Large firms operate at scale. When your carrier sends them a referral, it enters a queue. A case manager assigns it to an available examiner based on capacity and geography. The examiner may be senior or may be relatively junior with senior oversight. Communication flows through the case manager, who coordinates between the examiner, the carrier and your legal counsel.
This model works well for carriers because it provides predictable capacity. When a major ransomware campaign hits 50 organizations simultaneously, a large vendor can absorb the volume. They have the staff, the infrastructure and the processes to handle surge demand.
For large enterprise clients with complex, multi-site incidents involving dozens of systems and terabytes of data, the large vendor model makes sense. They have the team depth to staff a 15-person engagement and the project management infrastructure to coordinate it.
Where the Model Can Fall Short
For mid-market organizations, the experience with a large panel vendor can feel impersonal. Your 50-employee company is one of 500 active cases. The examiner assigned to your case may be juggling four or five other engagements simultaneously. Status updates come on a schedule, not when you have questions. And the person you speak with on the phone may not be the person actually examining your evidence.
Response times can also vary. During a busy period, when ransomware campaigns are hitting dozens of organizations at once, the large vendor's capacity gets stretched. Your mid-market case may not receive the same urgency as the Fortune 500 client who called at the same time. This is not malicious, it is triage. But it can feel frustrating when your business is down and you are waiting for a callback.
The other factor is cost. Large firms carry significant overhead: office space in multiple cities, project managers, account executives and administrative staff. That overhead is reflected in their hourly rates, which typically range from $350-$500 USD per hour. For a straightforward ransomware investigation, the total cost at a large firm can easily reach $75,000-$150,000 USD.
How Independent Forensics Firms Work
An independent firm like Sherlock Forensics operates differently. When you engage us, the principal examiner, a senior professional with over 20 years of experience, is directly involved in your case from the first phone call through final report delivery. There is no case manager layer. There is no handoff from the person who sold the engagement to the person who does the work.
This model delivers several advantages for mid-market organizations:
Direct access to senior expertise. When you call, you speak to the examiner working your case. Questions get answered in hours, not days. You are not waiting for information to pass through a case management layer.
Faster response for right-sized engagements. Without the queue system of a large firm, we can begin triage immediately. Our 1-hour acknowledgment and 4-hour initial response SLAs reflect the reality of a focused practice, not the aspirational targets of a volume operation.
The same professional qualifications. The certifications and experience that matter in forensic investigations are held by individuals, not firms. Our principal examiner holds CISSP, ISSAP and ISSMP certifications, has been court-qualified in multiple Canadian jurisdictions and has over 20 years of forensic experience. These are the same qualifications held by senior examiners at the largest firms.
Cost efficiency. Without the overhead of a 500-person organization, our rates reflect the actual cost of delivering expert forensic work. For a mid-market engagement, the total cost is typically 30-50% lower than the equivalent engagement at a large panel vendor.
When to Choose Which
Large panel vendors are the right choice when your incident involves a massive, multi-site environment requiring a team of 10 or more examiners working simultaneously. If you are a 5,000-employee enterprise with operations in six countries, you need the team depth that only a large firm can provide.
Independent firms are the right choice when you want senior-level attention on a right-sized engagement. If you are a 50-500 employee organization dealing with a ransomware incident, a business email compromise or a focused data breach, you do not need a 15-person team. You need one or two senior examiners who know your case intimately and can move quickly.
The question to ask yourself is not "which firm is bigger?" It is "who will give my case the attention it needs to reach the best outcome?"
You Can Usually Choose
Most policyholders do not realize they can request a specific vendor. When your carrier assigns a forensic vendor, that assignment is often flexible. You can request Sherlock Forensics by name, and in most cases, the carrier will approve the request based on our qualifications and track record.
If you want to go further, pre-approve us with your carrier before a breach occurs. This eliminates any approval delay during an active incident. Call us at 604.229.1994 and we will walk you through the process.