The Impact of Cyber Risk on Business Objectives

Cyber risk stops being an issue exclusive to the technology area once you understand that an incident can directly impact concrete business objectives, such as delaying a product launch, losing the trust of a key investor or breaching a contract with a security clause the company failed to meet in time. Seeing cyber risk through this lens helps prioritize decisions, because not all technical vulnerabilities carry the same weight for the business, and one that seems technically minor could put a strategic goal at risk if it affects the wrong system at the wrong time. For example, a vulnerability in the payment system right before a major sales campaign represents a much greater business risk than the same vulnerability detected in a test environment with no real data.