Weighing Up Potential Loss and Prevention in the Wake of Crowdstrike and NetworkRail Outages

Following the large-scale Crowdstrike data breach in July and the September cyber attack on Network Rail, businesses need to step up their security processes to make sure that they are protected from possible breaches, argues Conor O’Neill

In the aftermath of the unprecedented Crowdstrike cyber incident in July 2024, the actual cost of a data breach is being reconsidered by many and can be branded into three categories:

1. Financial loss

One of the most common impacts of a data breach is financial loss. Businesses are popular targets for cyber criminals, and hackers have much more to gain from attacking a company’s network than targeting individuals. A report by IBM shows that the average global cost of a data breach in 2020 is $3.86M.

Researchers at IBM believe that these four factors determine the cost of a data breach:

• Detecting the breach: Your company will have to spend money to investigate the source of the breach.
• Notifying customers: If your company is attacked, you’ll have to notify your customers. This will cost your company time and money, whether through phone calls, emails, or letters.
• Responding to the breach: You might have to hire experts to help you resolve the problem, or maybe you’ll appease customers with discounted prices. There are different ways to respond to a data breach, but all are costly.
• Work disruption: A breach in your network will impact your revenue. Disruption could be lengthy, and some organisations might struggle to get back on their feet.

The IBM report states that the average time to identify and contain a data breach is 280 days, and breaches that are found and contained in less than 200 days save businesses around the world an average of $1M.

2. Damaged reputation

You might think a financial loss will be the biggest blow to your company, but a damaged reputation could significantly impact its future.

Customers want to trust that their sensitive data is safe and secure. If your company is the victim of a data breach, your customers will question the safety of their personal information. Reputation damage could be more detrimental to your company than any financial loss.

3. Weakened relationships

A damaged reputation often leads to weakened relationships. Investors and employees are crucial to your company’s success, but broken trust might weaken those relationships. A data breach might make investors doubt their decision to work with you and question whether their assets are protected.

Awareness of potential damage is essential, but preventative measures to deter risk must then be considered.

Threat modelling

In my opinion, threat modelling is the most effective way of proactively identifying and preventing cyber threats.

The NCSC recommends assessing an organisation for vulnerabilities every month

Consider fundamental data security, including automatic updates, two-factor authentication, backups, and password best practices. Users should at least use these basic security measures to protect themselves.

Businesses should monitor their networks for vulnerabilities continuously and identify any weak spots in their software that could be targeted by cyber criminals. The National Cyber Security Centre recommends assessing an organisation for vulnerabilities every month. However, at OnSecurity, we believe in annual penetration testing and threat intelligence tools to monitor the threat landscape in real-time.

The final step that you should take to protect your business is to develop an incident response plan.

While taking our advice and implementing these quick wins will improve your company’s security, you are not entirely safe from cyber attacks. Cyber criminals are sophisticated, and the world of cybercrime is constantly changing and evolving. However, developing an incident response plan will help you and your employees identify and overcome cyber attacks quickly, reducing the risk of damage to your business.