The downgrade of Equifax due to losses from their data breach in 2017, affecting almost 150 million customers, is hugely important to the entire cybersec industry and we need to be talking to executives and boards about this.
Yes, cybersecurity incidents can have a significant and direct impact on financial outlooks and must be treated with those risks in mind. Equifax has reported spending a whopping $1.4 billion so far on recovery and the breach has now been assessed as being 'entirely preventable'.
Leaders of all companies must proactively face the risks and manage them appropriately.
This will not be the last downgrade of companies due to cyberattacks.
