What Are My Chances?

June 30, 2026

When A Cyber Attack Strikes, What Are My Chances Of Recovery?

What Are My Chances?

(This photo is from Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) when the Captain asks a compromised computer about chances of survival against the hungry alien. The computer refuses to answer.)

What are my actual risks?

Losses from cyber-attacks are only now published in a study by Verizon. See Verizon Breach Impact Study.

As a small business (defined as less than $25M annual revenue), a cyber-attack might cost you 3% of your revenue.

There is a wide range, with most costs being less than 1% and a few at the 7% level. Happily, the median is 0.6%. See Figure 12 of the report.

But, there is always a “but”

These figures are for insurance claims and not for all small business cyber incidents. Also, these are US businesses only, and so may be only an approximation for Canada, Australia, UK, etc.

Because these are insurance claims, they represent the lowest likely cost, or a “floor” as the report calls it. Most incidents will cost more, because of deductibles, coverage scope (uninsured risks), payout limits, and so on.

“Uninsurable” losses might include reputational loss, marketing efforts around “we are still in business”, employment costs with attrition or terminations, and so on.

The report does not address claim denials (69k claims less 38k payouts is 31k claims denied, or 45%. Page 4). Paying for insurance and not getting paid out for a claim is going to be a bitter pill for many businesses to swallow.

What are the lessons here?

For small business, there are three key lessons from the report:

• The losses are not huge, only 1% typically. This should strongly influence your cyber defense policies and budgets.

• Most losses are avoidable: Ransomware and Business Email Compromise can be mitigated with effective policies and policy enforcement. See page 29 of the report.

• Recovery from any kind of cyber attack is expensive (25% of costs) but we know that preparation can reduce this cost dramatically.

At CyberStepTracker we show you the way to policies and actions that substantially reduce your risks. We show you methods to improve your response and recovery efforts and time.

What are my chances?

Unlike the computer called “Mother” in the Alien movie, we do have a “computed” answer and it’s not expensive and it’s not complicated.

Thanks to the Verizon Breach Impact Study we now know that cyber-attacks are survivable. And we know what a likely cost will be and can adjust our plans accordingly.

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