The Implications of Cyber Breaches for Businesses

While the specific impact of a data breach on a company varies depending on the niche and timing, there are some general effects that cut across all types of businesses. A long line of things might motivate cyber breaches. Chief among them is financial motivation, which, according to a report from 2019, takes a princely 72% share.

Cyber breaches are to be taken seriously because of the devastating damage they can cause for a business or brand. Asides its cost implications, it comes with legal consequences as well.

The following are a host of effects cyber breaches can have on businesses and brands.

Loss in Revenue

Financial loss is one of the most noticeable effects of a cyber breach on a business. According to studies, 29% of businesses that face a data breach are likely to lose revenue in the end. Among those that end up losing some revenue, 38% saw off a loss of about 20% or more.

Apart from the data that can be lost, the downtime of your website can lead to work disruptions. It can also make you lose leads and sales if you run an ecommerce website. Generally, the economic cost of cyber breaches includes theft of corporate information, financial information, money, or loss of deals and contracts in some cases.

Damaged Reputation

This is an even more lasting effect of cyber breaches than financial implications. Losing data can make you lose the trust of your customers and stakeholders. For the most part, customers or businesses will kick against doing business with a company that has fallen victim to cyber crime in the past. This is especially true if customers’ data was compromised in the process.

The thing is:

A cyber breach can devalue a company in a matter of minutes, pulling down to the ground years of hard work.

Fines

As if financial losses weren’t enough to damage the business already, you can be made to pay fines if you fail to comply with legislation on data protection. In fact, the powers that be are now considering imposing heavier punishments for data breaches. In some cases, you can even land a jail term as the business owner. Customers’ data is as important as the business, and you should treat it so.

Introduction of Malware

In some cases, a cyber breach isn’t aimed at stealing customers’ data. The hacker might be interested in some other information that can be fetched through spyware. They might also be interested in just running down your website for the fun of it or to the benefit of your direct competitors.

Shockingly, most breaches go unnoticed for over 200 days. You should invest in keeping your website safe from hackers and cyberattacks.

Final Take!

Since technology has become the bedrock of most businesses, the extent of the damage a cyber breach can pose to a business should come as no surprise. To counter cyber attacks, you must put measures in place to get ahead of hackers.

Here’s the bottom line:

Beefing up your website’s security might involve spending a large sum of money, but it is far less expensive than the fortune a cyber breach would cost you.

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About the Author

Yuliia Litvinchuk is a content coordinator at LegalJobSite.net with an unquenchable thirst for cybersecurity. You can often find her at her computer locating the latest information in the field. When not working, she can be spotted watching 80s and 90s anime and reading sci-fi comics.