The Costs of a Cyberattack: Economic Impact and Long-Term Impact

Cyberattacks have lasting effects beyond company finances in the short term, diminishing the organization's reputation, operability and revenue generation. While it can be easy to assume that the immediate damages are the worst, in reality, the hidden costs of malicious activities cause greater damage over time and are more difficult to mitigate. This article will discuss how a cyberattack can harm your business and why it's important to be prepared.

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Tangible Costs: Immediate and Measurable Damages

When an organization faces a cyberattack, tangible costs are always the first to manifest. These are the direct damages that immediately hit the company's spending. The usual first thing is data loss and the destruction of critical information. Here there can be customer information and even commercial, industrial and any other information that the company is committed to.

This type of loss can also result in a loss of productivity, since the systems that are affected can be inoperative for hours or days. Once again, it results in an inability to generate income. Recovering systems involves a significant expense of money, since it is necessary to purchase restoration data, fix the damage caused and return to normal may require external services and overtime technical staff.

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It is also worth mentioning that there are fines and legal costs for incomplete regulations such as the GDPR, which can amount to 20 million euros or 4% of the company's annual turnover. These penalties can be increased considerably if the cyberattack compromises sensitive customer data or if the company has not implemented adequate security measures.

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Intangible Costs: The Consequences That Aren't Seen by the Naked Eye

Intangible costs, although more difficult to assess, can be much more devastating in the long term for the company. Reputational damage is perhaps the most serious. Customers and investors could stop trusting their company after the attack, and regaining the trust of both can take a lot of time and money. In addition, a cyberattack can affect the viability of the company, especially if it occurs at key times of the year.

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The emotional costs of workers must be taken into account. In light of the nervousness and anxiety involved in a cybersecurity attack, it will also affect team morale and make recovery even more exhausting and difficult.

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The increase in cyber insurance premiums is another intangible cost. Insurers say that a cyberattack can affect a company's vulnerability in such a way that it increases in the face of possible future risks, so that costs increase significantly.

Global impact of cybercrime

The costs of cybercrime continue to escalate. Experts estimate that the costs of cybercrime will reach 10.5 trillion dollars in 2025. This represents an annual growth rate of 15%. These figures show the expansion of cyberattacks, both in number of cases and in sophistication.

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The costs of a cyberattack vary significantly depending on the size of the company in Spain. Large companies can lose approximately 340,000 euros per attack while smaller companies could lose around 24,000 euros. The financial impact of a cyberattack on companies can be clearly reflected, regardless of their size. The risk is global.

Protect your business before it's too late

The costs derived from a cyberattack are not summarized as immediate losses, they go further: the long-term effects on reputation, operations and employee morale can destroy a business. Emphasizing cybersecurity and having an incident response plan is not only a matter of immediate protection, but also a way to ensure the survival and development of the company. The protection of your assets, both tangible and intangible, is of vital importance, don't let a cyber attack affect your business, for that reason, trust Apolo Cybersecurity as your trusted partner. Check out our Cybersecurity Solutions now.

https://www.apolocybersecurity.com/soluciones

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