Budgeting for the cyber security of your business can often seem expensive, which is why some companies place security low on their list of priorities. What these businesses fail to realize is that a cyber breach can be ludicrously costly, both in terms of monetary losses and in losses of clients and those clients’ trust in your company. According to this article from business.com, a cyber breach can cost anywhere from $120 000 to $1 240 000. Now, you may be thinking, “Sure, cyber breaches can cost a lot for larger companies, but what about my smaller business?”,The unfortunate case is, these are the numbers for small companies. Cyber breaches tend to completely destroy small businesses. The reason cyber breaches are so expensive is because the fees do not originate from just one cost, but from multiple. After you experience a cyber breach, a business has to deal with system repair and fees both legal and from regulatory bodies, which isn’t even to mention the increase in your insurance premium. A cyber breach is expensive. You must do everything you can to prevent one.

I mentioned earlier that there isn’t just a monetary cost. If a breach occurs, you must inform your clients. This does not reflect well on your business. When a user starts using a site, they often give it the benefit of the doubt that it is secure. After a breach, however, it takes incredible amounts of work to regain a user’s trust. You will lose paying customers over a breach and you will gain a negative reputation, costing you customers further down the line.

Again, a cyber breach isn’t just money and cents, there is an ethical aspect of it as well. Your users are people with lives of their own, having their personal data exposed can negatively affect their lives. They are trusting your site, and if it fails, you break the trust you have worked so hard to build. It affects the lives of your clients and it is your responsibility to ensure you are taking good care of their data.

What can you do? Get insurance, develop with security in mind, test your web application. Cyber liability insurance is offered by many different insurance providers, so take the time to find the plan right for you. It will be expensive, but it will give you the much-needed capital if a breach does occur. Develop your web application with security in mind, if you have a dev team, be very clear that security is a priority. If you have outsourced your development, get the security of your site tested and if a vulnerability presents itself, ask for your developer to fix it.

If you hire someone to build a house, and once it’s finished you find a hole in the wall, you are well within your rights to ask them to fix it. It’s the same with a website. The final step you can take is to get a professional to test the security of your website. The majority of vulnerabilities result from human error. As a programmer myself, I can tell you that we often get tunnel vision and sometimes miss obvious mistakes, it’s just human nature. Getting someone else with a fresh perspective is sometimes all you need.