HOW CYBER SECURITY IMPACTS BUSINESSES GLOBALLY?

Whether your business is a startup or a large enterprise, cyber security is a must for all. It is because people are using online mode to share important information, thus making cybersecurity a must to one and all. It is a necessity in today’s time because a major chunk of our activities has gone online. Though the online way has made our lives easier, this has imposed a threat to our private information that might easily get leaked. The leakage of such information can pose devastating consequences. In such a situation, the small firms can even go bankrupt by paying price to respond against a cyber attack. There can be a huge loss of revenue resulting in business disruption.

According to Daniel Castro, the Vice-president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a cyber attack can lead to cost between $57 and &109 billion. It has been found that roughly, 36% of the businesses around the world lose all its money due to cyber attacks. The annual loss has an estimation of $79,841 on an average. Most of the time people tend to think that their business is too small to face cyber attack and this is where they make a blunder to turn the tables upside down.

WHAT IS CYBER SECURITY?

According to Russel Schrader, cybersecurity is an economic and security issue that can be best addressed through cooperation between private as well as public partnerships with the consumers, industry and the government. Small businesses lack the technical resources, finances, and legal knowledge to be able to protect themselves. There should be proper training given through educational workshops so that people get informed about how to tackle cyber attacks. Small businesses are more prone to cybersecurity threats because they do not take any serious measure to protect themselves against these threats.

It has been recently found out that about one-third of the small businesses do not take any preventive step to withstand cyber threats. Half of these businesses do not even maintain a budget to deal with such a threat. There should be an emergence of agencies that can make people aware of what exactly cybersecurity is? Providing enough resources and education will do the help. By resources, we mean setting up a cost-sharing cooperative, low-cost sessions on training that must be focused on the latest and emerging threats and how to handle them through the latest and improved online tools.

EFFECTIVE MEASURES AGAINST CYBERSECURITY ATTACKS

The best solution to this is to stay defensive as much as possible. Staying updated with the Antivirus software, firewalls and security features is the best solution to such an issue. Hackers are evolving every day and are emerging with new techniques to steal your personal information. The only way to this is to stay updated with every security mechanism. In spite of taking up all effective measures and doing significant investment in the best security systems, a single e-mail attachment that contains virus can infect the entire LAN.

A good Cybersecurity impact on your business is the only effective way to withstand these issues. Most of the time the small businesses do not take this up as a serious issue that they might have to deal with in the future. But, it is the need of time to make the most proactive investment to protect his/her SMB.

HOW TO RESPOND TO A CYBERSECURITY BREACH?

Even after taking up all the preventive measures against cybersecurity breach, you might fall prey to it. Here is where you need to react wisely and ensure that you have a disaster-recovery plan. It helps you to respond to such an attack most quickly and effectively. Stay prepared to shut down the infected system and all the other devices that are within the same network. Get a technical help as early as possible and run a malware scan. Dispose of all the potential threats to your network and stay more alert in the future. The quicker you are to respond to such attacks, the more you are able to save. Responding quickly limits the damage done by hacking.

ECONOMIC COST

Cyber attacks mostly result in financial losses. Below listed are the potential reasons it arises from:

• Leaking of corporate information
• Leaking of financial information that may include information related to your bank and payment card
• Loss of money
• Trading disruption like the inability to do online transactions
• The loss in business or losing some contract

Businesses dealing with a cyber attack further incurs costs associated with repairing the systems that have been affected along with the networks and devices.

DAMAGE TO REPUTATION

Trust is a goodwill that works intangibly to create a bond with the customers. A cyber breach has the potential to damage the reputation of the business that might have taken years to build up. It, in turn, can erode the faith that your customers have on you. This further leads to:

• Losing loyal customers
• Loss in sale
• Damage to profit margin

A reputational damage leaves a strong impact on the suppliers as well. It also affects the bond between the business partners, potential investors, and the third parties who are associated with the business.

CONSEQUENCES ON LEGAL GROUND

As per the data protection and privacy laws, an individual is required to manage the security of all personal data that he/she holds. It can be related to both staffs as well as customers. If found compromising with any such conditions, you will be declared a failure in deploying appropriate security measure. It is a punishable offense and can lead to fines and regulatory sanctions.

CONCLUSION

So to conclude, we can say, that there are possible ways to minimize the impact of the cyber breach on your business. It is mandatory to handle the potential risks accordingly. In case of an attack, an excellent cyber security incident response plan can turn out to be a savior. Let’s see how:

• It helps to reduce the impact of the breaching done
• Cleans up the systems that have been affected