There are many facets to the damage that successful cyberattacks cause on organizations. Everything from issues of privacy (with regards to user data being stolen) to intellectual property theft can fall under the umbrella of post-incident analysis. One of the biggest issues for many companies, as one would guess, is the monetary cost of dealing with a major cyberattack. From the downtime that causes work productivity to come to a full-stop to damage that requires an expenditure to fix, the financial impact can be massive.
It is this issue that Radware’s 2018-2019 Global Application and Network Security Report focuses on. The study polled 790 IT executives to gauge the issues that faced them the most. With regards to the financial impact, the report showed a growth of 50 percent in cyberattacks that cost over $1 million, and within this metric, there were a decent percentage of companies that estimate the cost at nearly $1.7 million. This is likely due to both the efficacy of new cyberattack methods and also the increase of cyberattack frequency (the report states that “78 percent of respondents” were hit by a major cyber incident, which is a 10 percent increase from last year).
Jeff Curley, head of online and digital for Radware UK, Ireland, and the Nordics, had this to say about the data the report found:
This year we’ve seen a real shift in the impact an attack has on a company financially and it’s especially interesting that more companies are taking the time to calculate the loss not just estimate it. That’s not surprising given how volatile economies are at the moment. Understanding the impact of downtime on productivity as well as sales and consumer trust is essential to justify spending money on protecting the business in the future, and staying competitive.
The takeaway from the Radware report is that more must be done to contain major security incidents, but also, that it is encouraging that IT executives are more engaged in the Information Security process. Cyberattacks will never cease, but how we respond to them will determine their efficacy in the years to come.