What are the costs and benefits of developing cybersecurity programs in business?

Cyber-attacks and data breaches can cost a business millions of dollars depending on how serious the attack is. Depending on what information was compromised can determine the cost of a breach to business. A business can spend an average of $4 billion due to loosing personal information of their customers and any other sensitive data. A stolen record can cost a business anywhere from $150 to $400 (Aggan). Records consist of financial information to health records. Having data hacked is not the only thing that affect a business. When a business becomes a victim to a cyber-attack or data breach, it can potentially cause them to lose their customer base. When a business loss their customers, they then develop having financial loss due to the lack of business (Aggan). Having your business attacked can cause more issues in the background that people do not understand, and potentially can cause the business to shut down for good. Businesses should invest in cybersecurity and develop a strategy plan. This would allow a business to prepare for an attack before it happens or handle it with all the proper percussions. This also improves an element of safety for a business’s customer base. Being able to protect all sensitive data not just for the customers, but for the business. Properly educating employees on the different types of cyber risk they will can potentially encounter and developing a proper procedure if an attack is detected (Beavers). A team should be ready to handle an attack at any time. Even if an attack has accrued, developing a plan on how to handle and recover from it is important also. Cyber-attacks and data breaches can be hard for a business to recover from and having the proper plans in place to prevent an attack will help lessen the impact it has. This can also make businesses less of a target for hackers and bring more customers. Not all businesses can avoid an attack completely, but they should be properly prepared to handle one (Beavers).