diff --git a/main.go b/main.go
index 2fca7aed6733..4c5cf2982863 100644
--- a/main.go
+++ b/main.go
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ var (
 	fail                 = cli.Flag("fail", "Exit with code 183 if results are found.").Bool()
 	verifiers            = cli.Flag("verifier", "Set custom verification endpoints.").StringMap()
 	customVerifiersOnly  = cli.Flag("custom-verifiers-only", "Only use custom verification endpoints.").Bool()
+	detectorTimeout      = cli.Flag("detector-timeout", "Maximum time to spend scanning chunks per detector (e.g., 30s).").Duration()
 	archiveMaxSize       = cli.Flag("archive-max-size", "Maximum size of archive to scan. (Byte units eg. 512B, 2KB, 4MB)").Bytes()
 	archiveMaxDepth      = cli.Flag("archive-max-depth", "Maximum depth of archive to scan.").Int()
 	archiveTimeout       = cli.Flag("archive-timeout", "Maximum time to spend extracting an archive.").Duration()
@@ -439,6 +440,9 @@ func run(state overseer.State) {
 		}
 	}
 
+	if *detectorTimeout != 0 {
+		engine.SetDetectorTimeout(*detectorTimeout)
+	}
 	if *archiveMaxSize != 0 {
 		handlers.SetArchiveMaxSize(int(*archiveMaxSize))
 	}
diff --git a/pkg/engine/engine.go b/pkg/engine/engine.go
index 9ec11dccc181..7d856c84ab45 100644
--- a/pkg/engine/engine.go
+++ b/pkg/engine/engine.go
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog/v3/pkg/sources"
 )
 
-const detectionTimeout = 10 * time.Second
+var detectionTimeout = 10 * time.Second
 
 var errOverlap = errors.New(
 	"More than one detector has found this result. For your safety, verification has been disabled." +
@@ -316,6 +316,9 @@ func NewEngine(ctx context.Context, cfg *Config) (*Engine, error) {
 	return engine, nil
 }
 
+// SetDetectorTimeout sets the maximum timeout for each detector to scan a chunk.
+func SetDetectorTimeout(timeout time.Duration) { detectionTimeout = timeout }
+
 // setDefaults ensures that if specific engine properties aren't provided,
 // they're set to reasonable default values. It makes the engine robust to
 // incomplete configuration.