Cyberattacks are something which every business should be worried about and the rise in recent years of these attacks is a real cause for concern. Unlike a break in or a physical theft, companies may not even be aware that they have been or that they are being attacked. These attacks are completed from remote locations and they are incredibly stealthy. Unfortunately however despite how subtle the attack itself is, the fall out from it is far from quiet. Bharat Bhise HNA is an industry expert when it comes to cybersecurity and we caught up with him at a recent conference to find out why the consequences of an attack will cost the victim so much money, let’s take a look.
Lost Time
In the days following an attack there is a lot of work to be done on the business’ computer systems to ascertain the damage which has been caused, to try and look for the gap which let the hacker in and to restore, reboot and upgrade the systems to get them back online. All of this means that a business could be taken offline completely for hours and days following the attack. In the case of small businesses they very rarely have the infrastructure or the funds to use a rapid action IT team to fix these issues, and the longer that they wait to have the issue resolved, they are losing money and paying wages when there is little to do.
Smashed Reputation
If a customer finds out that their personal information has been obtained by a hacker because your company’s cybersecurity was not up to standard then they are going to completely lose faith in your business and you can guarantee that they won’t be coming back. Beyond this word will quickly get out about what has happened, and that can damage any future relationships with customers. Some businesses have had their reputations completely destroyed by an attack such as this and getting that reputation back is almost impossible. The damaged rep will cost you an untold amount of money in lost future sales.
Damage
Cyberattacks can cause physical damage to software and hardware and if that is the case then this will be yet another cost which the business will have to absorb. IT teams are not cheap and they will charge for working hours, for new pieces of hardware and of course for any upgrades on software. The bill can quickly run high and this is often one of the biggest expenses after a cuber attack.
The estimated average cost of a cyberattack on businesses in the US is $110,000, that is a mammoth figure which far exceeds anything which it may cost for a business to implement heavy levels of cybersecurity in the first place. Few small businesses can afford this which is exactly why it is so crucial that they invest as much as they can into beefing up their cybersecurity in order to protect themselves.