Cybersecurity: The Top Business Risk Many Firms Still Struggle to Tackle
Cybersecurity has emerged as the biggest threat to modern enterprises, yet most organizations remain far from prepared to handle it. Business leaders are aware of the risks — financial losses, reputational harm, and operational disruptions but awareness has not translated into effective readiness.
A recent global survey conducted in early 2025 across North America, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific highlights this growing concern. With 600 respondents, including IT and security professionals, the study found that while executives admit to weak points in their defenses, they often lack a unified plan to build true resilience.
Where businesses fall short
Companies tend to focus heavily on protecting their data, ensuring quality, security, and proper governance. While crucial, these efforts alone are not enough. A resilient business must also address application security, identity management, supply chain safeguards, infrastructure defenses, and the ability to continue operations during an attack. Unfortunately, many firms still fall behind in tying all these dimensions into a cohesive strategy.
Why this matters now
Cyberattacks are no longer rare, one-off incidents. Nearly two-thirds of the organizations surveyed experienced at least one damaging cyber event in the past year. About one-third suffered multiple breaches in that period. These attacks caused not just stolen data but also costly downtime, compliance issues, and long-lasting damage to trust.
The survey’s findings revealed that:
• 38% of organizations faced major operational disruption, with outages and downtime hitting productivity hardest.
• 33% reported financial losses linked directly to an attack.
• Around 30% to 31% saw personal or sensitive data exposed or compromised.
• Nearly a quarter of cases involved data corruption or encryption that could not be fully reversed.
• Legal consequences, public backlash, and compliance failures added further damage.
The message is clear: cybersecurity is not just a technical concern, it is a business survival issue.
The study also shows that three once-separate areas are beginning to merge. Backup and recovery systems, once viewed as insurance, are now central to cyber resilience. Cybersecurity tools are extending beyond perimeter defense to include recovery and continuity. At the same time, data governance and compliance pressures have become inseparable from security practices.
As artificial intelligence gains ground in enterprise operations, this convergence is likely to intensify. AI requires clean, reliable data to function, but it also introduces fresh security risks. Companies that cannot safeguard and recover their data risk losing competitiveness in an economy increasingly powered by digital intelligence.
No safe corners in digital infrastructure
Attackers are methodical and opportunistic. They exploit weak points wherever they exist whether in data systems, applications, or even AI workloads. Defenders must therefore strengthen every layer of their infrastructure. Yet, according to the survey, most organizations still leave gaps that skilled adversaries can exploit.
Cybersecurity is now the most significant risk enterprises face. And while business leaders are no longer in denial about the threat, too many remain underprepared. Building resilience requires more than just securing data; it demands a comprehensive, ongoing effort across every layer of the digital ecosystem.
