Can You Put a Dollar Amount on Your Company’s Cyber Risk?

This article in Harvard Business Review talks about a common topic in cybersecurity which is quantifying the effects of cyber attacks. Cyber attacks can be very costly, but the vague notion of expensive can cloud a companies ability to accurately prepare. It is important to have an idea of the scale of a cyber attack because an attack could monetarily be an inconvenience or a cause for bankruptcy. While its impossible to entirely protect a company from cyber attacks, its important to identify the potential costs from a cyber attack to best allocate resources. Companies need to weigh all aspects including revenue losses, perception losses, liability losses, costs of fixing the problem, etc. Ultimately, companies need to prioritize analyzing the technical data from previous cyber attacks to best prepare their company and protect against irreparable damage that could be caused by a cyber attack.