As cybercrime continues to escalate, businesses across the globe are facing increasingly sophisticated and devastating cyberattacks. These attacks can cripple operations, cause financial turmoil, and damage reputations. Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has recently highlighted the alarming consequences businesses can suffer in the face of such incidents, underscoring the importance of robust cyber protection.
Among the many forms of cyberattacks, ransomware has emerged as one of the most destructive. A recent high-profile case involved Johnson Controls, a global leader in building technology, which was hit by a severe ransomware attack orchestrated by the Dark Angels hacking group. This breach resulted in the theft of 27 terabytes of sensitive data, with a ransom demand of $51 million. The incident not only disrupted the company’s systems but also incurred losses exceeding $27 million. The attack illustrates the scale of financial damage a business can suffer when its cybersecurity defenses are breached.
Beyond the direct financial losses, cyberattacks have a ripple effect on a company’s day-to-day operations. When critical systems are compromised, productivity plummets, and business activities can be paralyzed. In Johnson Controls’ case, operational disruptions affected everything from billing systems to recovery efforts, further exacerbating the financial strain. For businesses dependent on their digital infrastructure, even minor attacks can have lasting consequences, such as missed revenue and dissatisfied customers.
While the immediate financial and operational impacts of a cyberattack are daunting, the long-term costs can be just as crippling. Businesses must invest heavily in restoring their systems, upgrading cybersecurity defenses, and navigating legal challenges. These recovery processes can be time-consuming and expensive, diverting resources away from growth initiatives and straining relationships with customers and partners.
Reputational damage is another critical consequence of a cyberattack. A breach involving customer data can erode trust, driving clients to competitors and damaging a company’s brand image. This loss of confidence can take years to rebuild, if at all. The damage also extends to business partners, who may question the company’s ability to safeguard shared information, further isolating the affected business from vital support networks.
Legal and compliance repercussions present additional burdens for businesses. In regions with stringent data protection regulations, such as Europe’s GDPR or the U.S.’s HIPAA, failing to safeguard sensitive information can lead to heavy fines and regulatory scrutiny. Companies often find themselves entangled in costly legal battles following a breach, compounding their financial and reputational woes.
Finally, the loss of intellectual property (IP) poses a significant risk, particularly for companies in industries where proprietary information is a key competitive advantage. Cybercriminals targeting IP can steal designs, strategies, and confidential data, undermining a company’s ability to innovate and compete in the market. The theft of IP can erase years of investment in research and development, leaving businesses vulnerable to competitors.
Below, Kaspersky offers some recommendations to help your business stay ahead of cyberthreats and remain resilient:
- To protect the company against a wide range of threats, use solutions from the Kaspersky Next product line that provide real-time protection, threat visibility, and the investigation and response capabilities of EDR and XDR for organizations of any size and industry.
- If your company doesn’t have a dedicated IT security function and only has generalist IT admins who may lack the specialist skills required for expert-level detection and response solutions, consider subscribing to a managed service such as Kaspersky MDR. This would instantly boost your security capabilities by an order of magnitude, while allowing you to focus on building in-house expertise.
- Always keep the software updated on all the devices you use to prevent attackers from infiltrating your network by exploiting vulnerabilities, while making sure your endpoints are protected with Exploit Prevention technology.
- Install patches for new vulnerabilities as soon as possible. Once they are downloaded, threat actors can no longer abuse the vulnerabilities. The Kaspersky Next product line offers both Vulnerability & Patch, management and Exploit Prevention.
- Set up offline backups that intruders cannot tamper with. Make sure you can quickly access them in an emergency when needed.
- For protection of very small businesses, use solutions intended to help you manage your cybersecurity even without having an IT administrator on board. Kaspersky Small Office Security provides you with hands-off security due to ‘install and forget’ protection and saves the budget which is crucial, particularly in the early stages of business development.
- Transform the workforce into an extra layer of protection against human-related cyberattacks with the Kaspersky Automated Security Awareness Platform, a solution that instills safe internet behavior and includes a simulated phishing attack exercise, so they know how to recognize phishing emails and other socially engineered lures.
- Employing Kaspersky Professional Services optimizes the workload of your heavily challenged IT department. Kaspersky experts assess the state of your current IT security, then deploy and configure Kaspersky software quickly and properly to ensure hassle-free ongoing performance. And Kaspersky Premium Support facilitates quicker technical incident resolution, with minimal impact on business processes.
- Approach your protection with utter diligence and consider additional hardening options. Use cybersecurity solutions with application, web and device controls which limit the use of unsolicited apps, websites and peripherals. This significantly reduces the risk of infection, even in cases where employees use shadow IT or make mistakes due to a lack of cybersafe habits.