Over a third of cyberattacks result in job losses

In the past 12 months, over half of organisations were impacted by cyberthreats. Larger companies in particular were much more likely to come under attack.

The severity of these incidents is directly contributing to job losses. Of 500 UK IT, resilience and cybersecurity professionals surveyed, 37% reported that cyberattacks resulted in dismissals. 

Last year, Databarracks’ Data Health Check (DHC) found that cyberattacks are organisations’ leading cause of downtime anddata loss. In 2024, that is still the case.

Data lost to cyberincidents varies greatly by company size, with larger businesses five times more likely to be impacted. 

Chris Butler, Resilience Director at Databarracks, said: “It should come as little surprise that cyber remains organisations’ leading cause of downtime and data loss. The real news is that cyber is now having a significant impact on employees.

“Over a third of those surveyed in the DHC report job losses as a result of cyberattacks. These could be IT or security staff being dismissed in direct response to the breach, or wider layoffs from business disruption.

“Cyberattacks on businesses are often seen as victimless crimes because losses are covered by insurance. These results show that attacks have a personal impact.

“Today, IT teams are faced with significantly more risk and threats to the continuity of their organisations, which can have a profound impact on their wellbeing. But the same can be said for employees across a business.”