Productivity
Data breaches or system compromises arising from phishing attacks cause business disruption.
Being a victim of a phishing attack can be incredibly upsetting for the person targeted. It’s a violation of trust and can make them feel helpless. This can lead to feelings of anxiety, stress, and other emotional disturbances.
Dealing with the fallout of a phishing attack can also have a major impact on an individual’s work performance. They might have to spend a lot of time and effort dealing with the aftermath, which can lead to decreased productivity, absenteeism, and other negative impacts on their work. An employees productivity will also take a hit as many systems are put offline for reconfiguration and cleaning.
Other more broad productivity losses come in the aftermath of a virus or malware infection in distributed team, as everyone is redirected to putting out the immediate security fire, managing reputational damages and remediation.
Following a successful phishing attack, a business will spend a great deal of time trying to recover lost data and investigating the breach with little left for actual business.
On average, U.S. businesses stand to lose $1,819,923in productivity because of phishing scams. But in cases with a material outcome — like a loss of money or data — 41% of organizations take a day or more to recover.
