Negosentro.com | Why Cybersecurity Needs to Be Your Highest Priority | If cybersecurity is not currently your company’s top priority, then now is the time to reevaluate your priorities.
Cyberattacks are a serious threat that can affect a business of any size. Many businesses are vulnerable because they don’t have adequate cyber defenses in place.
This is problematic because an average cyberattack costs more than $188,000. As you might imagine, most companies cannot afford a loss this severe.
There are several reasons why cybersecurity needs to be taken seriously. Failing to do this can lead to an attack that cripples your business. Fortunately, this is preventable by bolstering your cybersecurity practices.
To help you avoid a costly incident, we’ll explain why you need to make cybersecurity your top priority below.
Disruption of Operations
Just about any cyberattack will inevitably result in the disruption of your operations.
Anytime that you have sensitive data compromised, you can’t continue operating as normal. You need to shut everything down to limit any further compromisation and assess the damage done.
When you can’t operate like normal, it means that no money is coming in and all efforts are focused on damage control.
There’s also the possibility that a cyberattack makes it impossible to work. If you’re facing a threat like ransomware, a hacker may restrict access to your network and/or data until you pay them their demands.
Regardless of what type of data theft occurs, you’ll need to stop what you’re doing and switch into recovery mode.
Losses Are Devastating
When you’re hit by a cyberattack, the losses are devastating.
As we mentioned above, you’re going to have operations disrupted by the incident. This means that you won’t be making any money in the immediate aftermath of an attack.
However, the bigger impact is what the data loss ultimately costs your business. With the average attack costing almost $200,000, that’s a lot of money for any business to lose.
It’s even more impactful for smaller businesses because they tend to have less financial flexibility. If a small business is the victim of a cyberattack, it’s highly likely that they shut down in the next few years.
Making matters worse, it’s incredibly difficult to come back from a cyberattack. The consequences are often severe and permanent, meaning that you’ll never recoup your losses.
Harm to Reputation
A major reason why your losses are so devastating is the harm it does to your reputation.
Even though you didn’t actively cause a cyberattack to happen, being a victim of one will forever change the way that your clients view you. Privacy and data security are incredibly important, so failing to uphold them will mean that you can put your clients at risk.
If your clients can’t trust that you’ll keep their data safe, then why would they continue to work with you? There are surely several other businesses out there that provide a similar service that haven’t been hit by a cyberattack.
For example, imagine having an expensive watch that needs to be repaired. Are you more likely to take it to a secure shop or one that’s been robbed several times in the past year?
You’re going to go to the secure shop because there’s a great chance of keeping your watch safe as it doesn’t have a history of being infiltrated. This works the same for customer data, meaning that a customer will always prefer the more secure option.
Your image will be forever tarnished by a cyberattack, which means that preventing one is your top priority.
Cyberattacks Are Increasingly Prevalent
One last thing to keep in mind is that cyberattacks are becoming increasingly prevalent.
Both the frequency and severity of cyberattacks are on the rise in recent years. It’s fairly simple to launch an attack and many businesses are unprotected, which creates a scenario where cybercrime is rampant.
What complicates this even more is that cyberattacks are becoming quite sophisticated. Cyber defense methods are adapting to evolving threats, but hackers are adjusting their techniques in response to this.
As a result, it’s difficult to always stay ahead of the threat because you can’t protect against what you don’t know is coming.
The best way of handling this is to implement the strongest cybersecurity measures that you can and emphasizing its importance to your employees. There’s still a possibility of an attack, but your risk is significantly reduced by implementing defenses to filter out most attempts.
Closing Thoughts
Cybersecurity is something that some businesses overlook, but it should be a priority for anyone worried about protecting their profits. Failing to do this can leave your business vulnerable to an attack that has serious consequences.
A few reasons to prioritize cybersecurity include avoiding disruption of operations, the losses are devastating, it will harm your reputation, and cyberattacks are becoming more prevalent.
All of this means that cybersecurity is not something to take lightly. Proper cybersecurity can keep your business protected from serious harm while ensuring that you don’t lose face with clients.
Do your business a huge favor and put more effort into upping your cybersecurity practices!
