Customers are fed up with data breaches, and they are taking out their anger on companies that can’t secure their information. Therefore, a data breach is more than just a cyber incident. It’s a collapse in customer service of the highest magnitude, and a priority that retailers looking to succeed in today’s digital environment must immediately address.

Third-party partnerships represent an opportunity to expand your company’s capabilities but can also manifest themselves as cybersecurity risks. Given the increasingly onerous consequences of a data breach, cybersecurity standards should be top consideration when establishing such relationships.

Ransomware attacks are uniquely expensive, due to the upfront cost of restoring technical services along with opportunity costs associated with lost capability. The prevalence of this threat is increasing the impetus for companies to ensure that their IT infrastructure doesn’t provide a foothold for criminals to inflict financial and reputational damage on their platform.

Recovering from a data breach is a challenging process, as companies are tasked with demonstrating their data security improvements while also wooing back customers that inevitably abandon them after a breach.

Reputation management and restoration is a critical component of an effective data breach response plan. Although it’s more difficult to quantify than direct financial losses, reputational damage can be extremely problematic for any company and even place their ability to recover in jeopardy.