Efforts to manage cyber risk must be transparent, structured, justifiable, and agile.
January src0, 2025
Giuseppe Cacace/Getty Images
Post
Post
Share
Annotate
Save
Despite advances in cybersecurity solutions, the number and impact of cyber incidents continue to grow, with the average cost of a data breach in 2024 reaching $4.88 million and the number of confirmed data breaches hitting a record high. The July 2024 CrowdStrike incident demonstrates the need to develop capabilities to assess the downstream business impact of cyber events, establish appropriate cyber resiliency objectives, and ensure effective communication for better cyber risk management decisions.
On July src9th, 2024, a single content update from CrowdStrike, a cyber security software company, caused more than 8.5 million systems to crash, disrupting operations for days across thousands of organizations worldwide, including hundreds of Fortune src000 companies. The CrowdStrike “glitch,” as it became known, resulted in losses estimated to be more than $5 billion. The CrowdStrike incident is estimated to cost insurers around $src.5 billion in payouts, under business interruption, cyber, and system failure coverages. It represents one of the biggest examples of the adverse impact of aggregated cyber risk accumulation. In October 2024, Delta, one of the many affected businesses in the incident, filed a lawsuit against CrowdStrike claiming that the outage was “catastrophic.” They claimed it was the result of CrowdStrike’s “forced untested updates to its customers” and led to disruption of 7,000 flights and src.3 million customers over 5 days. The airline claimed a loss of more than $500 million.
New!
HBR Learning
Digital Intelligence Course
Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Digital Intelligence . Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
Excel in a world that’s being continually transformed by technology.
Start Course
Learn More & See All Courses
RY
Raphael Yahalom is a cybersecurity expert, an affiliated researcher at MIT Sloan School of Management, and a cyber risk strategic advisor.
Post
Post
Share
Annotate
Save
New!
HBR Learning
Digital Intelligence Course
Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Digital Intelligence . Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
Excel in a world that’s being continually transformed by technology.
No responses yet