What Are the Less Obvious Yet More Damaging Costs of Cybercrime?

The incidence of cybercrime continues to skyrocket each year as digital technology changes and becomes more advanced.

Keeping up with the threats is difficult, even for those with the best cybersecurity strategies.

Disaster recovery plans have never been more essential as a failsafe, not just for the obvious losses associated with cybercrime but also for the hidden ones.

The Impact of Cybercrimes

To understand the importance of great security and an effective disaster recovery plan, business owners must be aware that there is a lot more at stake than just damaged hardware, lost work progress, and even the cost of paying a ransom.

In fact, the true costs associated with a cyber-attack can be so astronomical that it can easily put a company out of business.

Research indicates that the financial losses associated with cybercrime beyond just the payment of a ransom or replacing hardware are ongoing, as they can affect a company’s brand reputation and the reasoning behind this is two-fold:

  1. Firstly, cybercrime that affects a company also affects that company’s customers and clients. Whether due to personal information being accessed, business secrets being exposed, or a company’s critical business data being destroyed, without an established disaster recovery plan, these breaches can touch every part of a company’s sphere of existence, damaging all of it.
  2. The secondhand effect when this happens without a disaster recovery plan is the loss of trust it causes among customers, clients, vendors, and anyone doing business with the company in any way. Once that damage to a company’s brand has occurred, it is very costly to the company and very difficult to regain. All one has to do is look around at the damage that many notable companies have sustained due to various types of cyber-attacks and what it has cost them in ransoms, liability lawsuits, and other financial damages to understand how the reputations of these brands have become tarnished.

How to Get Ahead of CyberCrime

Staying one step ahead of cyber-criminals is becoming more challenging, yet more essential every day.

To avoid the costs of becoming a cyber victim, businesses must first develop a good security plan that reduces the chance of falling prey to ransomware, viruses, and other threats.

The second step in working out an effective and protective cybersecurity strategy is seeing it all the way through with a good disaster recovery plan.

The Value of Disaster Recovery Plans

In the same way that the damages incurred after an attack go far beyond a paid ransom or damaged equipment, disaster recovery plans go far beyond just backing up that company data.

Covering everything from network security and access control to emergency backups, business interruption plans, and threat mitigation policies, disaster recovery plans are an essential step that every company should take to reduce vulnerability and the astronomical costs that can come with it.