A successful cyberattack might seriously hurt your company. It may have an impact on your revenue as well as the reputation of your company and customer confidence. A security breach’s effects may be roughly categorized into three types: financial, reputational, and legal.

Businesses are growing more exposed to cyber criminals as they keep more of their own data online as well as the data of their clients. Dealing with cybercriminals drives up cybersecurity expenses, which may eventually be passed on to customers as increased pricing.

2019 saw a $1.8 billion loss for businesses due to cybercrime, according to business insurance Hiscox. Few firms are secure, and large corporations with significant web presences are frequently attacked. The industries that suffered the most losses were those related to energy, financial services, manufacturing, technology, and pharmaceuticals. Here are ways cybercrime can impact companies.

1. Damage reputation

The intangible quality of trust helps businesses build connections with their clients. The reputation of the company, which may have taken years to establish, might be harmed by a cyber intrusion. It might also cause your clients’ trust in you to decline. This ultimately results in:

• losing devoted clients
• Loosing sale
• A loss to the profit margin

A reputational injury has a significant effect on suppliers as well. It also has an impact on the relationships between business partners, potential investors, and other linked parties.

2. Operational disruption

Companies frequently incur indirect costs from cyberattacks in addition to direct financial losses, such as the potential for a significant interruption in business operations and associated revenue loss.

Cybercriminals can stifle a company’s regular operations in a variety of ways, such as by infecting computer systems with malware that deletes very valuable data or by placing malicious code on a server that prevents users from accessing your website.

So-called “hacktivists,” who have been known to infiltrate the computer networks of government organizations or multinational firms in the interest of drawing attention to a perceived injustice or promoting more transparency, like to disrupt business as usual.

For instance, in 2010, WikiLeaks-supporting hackers launched assaults on major credit card companies (Visa and MasterCard) in retaliation, momentarily taking down their websites.

3. Legal consequences

An individual is obligated to maintain the security of all personal data that they retain in accordance with data protection and privacy legislation. It may be relevant to both employees and clients. If any of these conditions are discovered to be compromised, it will be determined that you failed to implement the necessary security measures. It is a crime that can result in penalties and legal repercussions.

4. Stollen intellectual property

Products, technology, and go-to-market plans are frequently among a company’s most valuable assets. In 2015, S&P 500 firms’ worth was 87% made up of intangible assets, according to intellectual property consulting firm Ocean Tomo.

A large portion of this intellectual property is kept on the cloud, which makes it susceptible to hacker assaults. Nearly 30% of American businesses claim that within the last ten years, a Chinese rival has stolen their intellectual property.

5. Economic cost

Cyber assaults frequently cause a large financial loss due to:

• unauthorized access to company data
• financial information theft (eg bank details or payment card details)
• stealing money
• a halt to trade (eg inability to carry out transactions online)
• loss of contract or business

Businesses would often pay fees for fixing impacted systems, networks, and devices as part of dealing with the breach.

An efficient measure against cybercrimes

The best course of action in this situation is to play defense as much as you can. The easiest way to deal with this problem is to keep your firewalls, antivirus software, and security measures up to date. Every day, hackers improve their skills and come up with new ways to steal your personal data. The only way to do this is to keep abreast of all security measures. A single email attachment that includes a virus can infect the entire LAN, despite the use of all practical precautions and major investment in the finest security solutions.

The only reliable strategy to handle these problems is to have good cybersecurity impact on your company. Most of the time, small businesses do not view this as a significant issue that they may one day have to handle.