Even in a best-case scenario, in a bankruptcy “there’s going to be oversight by a trustee of the court if not a judge. The bar for justifying current spend during bankruptcy will be set high, and new spend is also going to be difficult,” says Cisco’s Alterson.

Ron Schlecht, Jr., managing partner of BTB Security, recalls a case where he helped a company in what he called “selloff mode.” “They realized they needed some control over what IT assets and what information was leaving, so they retained us to baseline where their information was, and document and implement procedures for decommissioning equipment,” he said. “While there wasn’t any pushback from creditors, the company made it very clear that they had to be cost-conscious with spending when we proposed work.”