Like many other companies, your small business is probably wondering – “Do we really need to spend on cybersecurity?” Truth be told, cybersecurity is as relevant for small businesses as it is for big organizations. In fact, studies and data incidents that small businesses are likely to be soft targets for hackers, who are aware that these companies will not chase them for long, in case of a breach or data theft. Dealing with security ban or breach can be extremely complicated, and in this post, we are discussing further on the potential consequences of a security breach.
- Compliance issues. With privacy and data safety laws and other compliance requirements in place, you cannot really ignore cybersecurity anymore. In case of a breach, agencies are most likely to probe if your company was compliant and taking enough steps to prevent the incident in the first place.
- Loss of revenue. There’s no denying that cybersecurity incidents impact a company’s operations, which directly leads to financial losses. Depending on the extent of the breach and how it affects your data and regular business, there can be major stress on resources too.
- Brand value damage. This is even harder to deal with. It takes years to gain the trust of investors, vendors, clients and partners, and any security breach is a clear indicator that not enough was being done for cybersecurity. It may take a considerable amount of work to gain back that trust again.
- Losing on data. Many hackers steal data, and this may mean compromising on the data of thousands or even millions of users, which include customers and employees. Data breaches and theft can have severe consequences.
- Legal cases. One of the other aspects to consider are the individual legal cases, which are likely to be filed by users affected by the breach. If the incident was a small one, you wouldn’t have a hard time minimizing the damage, but in other cases, financial losses will increase as court matters pile up.
Lastly, let’s not forget that hackers often have their own interest in causing a breach. If the incident is related to ransomware, they may try to extort money, while in other cases, the hacker may want to publish the data for other reasons.
In short, do not ignore cybersecurity policies and the need to have an incident response plan! Make sure that the entire organization knows the dos and don’ts of your cybersecurity policy.
