Cyberattacks are getting more costly for victims

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Cyberattacks are getting more costly for victim businesses, new figures

Research by Atlas VPN on the destructive potential of virus and malware cyberattacks found that almost a quarter (22%) of victim businesses lost anywhere between $100,000 and $499,999 in such an incident.

What’s more, 11% lost between $500,000 and $999,999, while 4% lost a million, or more. Overall, 37% lost $100,000 or more, while a quarter (24%) lost between $50,000 and $99,999.

Transparency issues

The exact financial impact is relatively hard to determine, too, as there are many moving parts to consider. Businesses also need to consider brand damage, partner and customer operation, and potential regulatory fines.

“Even though many businesses have invested more into cybersecurity lately, the most critical challenge is transparency,” comments cybersecurity writer at Atlas VPN, Vilius Kardelis. “Companies are afraid to report incidents for fear of losing customer trust. However, that makes cyberattacks more dangerous and prevalent, causing significant damage to businesses.”

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That being said, Atlas VPN discovered that almost a third (31%) of victim businesses experienced disruption of either partner, or customer operations, as well as theft of financial information. Also, more than a quarter (28%) suffered a tarnished reputation, while 24% were forced to handle the disruption in their supply chains.

Nearly a quarter (23%) were forced to address trading and business operations obstruction, while 19% experienced loss of business and contracts, and almost a fifth (18%) have straight up had their money stolen.

All of these things make businesses want to keep potential cyber incidents to themselves and not disclose them to the public.

In fact, 48% of IT leaders said they knew about the cyberattack against their organization but kept quiet about it. However, not disclosing these things makes cyberattacks even more dangerous and prevalent, and consequently - more devastating, the researchers concluded.

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Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.