How Data Breaches Damage Company Reputation Forever

Originally published by CAMPUS NEWS. Reposted with permission.

A data breach can damage the company’s reputation forever. That’s especially for small businesses that are not financially stable. Though it’s less likely that large companies will shut down their operations, they will suffer serious consequences.

The hit to the company’s reputation takes a toll after the breach, as most customers want to transact with companies that seem safe. There are ways businesses can keep attackers away from their personal information. Here are different ways data breaches can damage the company’s reputation forever.

Unexpected expenses

When a data breach happens to your company, there are things that you should change immediately if at you wish to maintain your customers. These unexpected expenses will throw the business budget out of whack. If your company is cybersecurity insured, this could lead to many unexpected costs. Still, you can’t just downsize your cyber insurance or not purchase it all.

Even when you have some insurance claims to count on, cybercrimes tend to be complicated, and you may not cover all the costs. In the case of a ransom attack, the company has to decide whether to lose the data or pay the required amount. Greetly visitor sign in system can help you stay secure and in compliance with the regulations set by the state. Greetly’s application provides everything you need to keep your workplace safe and protected from hackers. 

Leads to unnecessary fights

In most cases, data breaches usually pit the CEO against the Chief Communication Officer (CCO). In the past, the CEOs would blame the CCO completely and state that they are responsible for protecting the company’s data. But is this true or a matter of blame game? 

Most people will hold both of them at fault in case of a data breach. This includes the consumers who walk away and the shareholders who feel the financial impact. That’s because most of them do not understand the inner workings of cybersecurity systems. If these blame games continue, the company’s operations may get down to a level where the company may never recover again.

Poisoned search results on corporate brand

Nothing disappears on the internet. Even if the respective platform decides to pull down all the posts, there are a few people who will store these files offline. Competitors can sometimes use this to taint your company whenever it tries to make any little progress. Loyal supporters of a company will do anything possible to ensure that they ouster their competitors.

That means that the chief marketing officer, together with their department, will spend years in an attempt to control the tainted image after the incident. In this case, they need to combat every search on the internet and monitor all the social media posts to dismiss them as fake. Still, they will need to organize responses across all the corporate platforms to ensure that everyone uses the same positive spin.

Loss of sales

Data breaches often lead to the loss of customers, and this, in turn, leads to a decrease in sales. If the current customers lose trust in the business, then they will bypass it and look for “better” companies to deal with. This is when your competitors will rise to the occasion and try to convince the undecided customers.

The adverse reports and reviews from different social media platforms will turn off new potential customers. And that means the growth of the business will be impaired to some extent. Operations will become very challenging as the company cannot meet its revenue target and operational costs. One of the options left for the company would be to seek financial assistance from different institutions.