Ride the Lightning

Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

A Cloud Failure Could Cost U.S. Economy $15 Billion

February 6, 2018

If you are depressed by the falling stock market's impact on your 401(k) funds – and you own a business – you might not want to read this story. If a major cloud fails, your business losses could be astronomical.

A report in RCRWireless News says that a cyber security incident that takes a top three cloud provider offline for three to six days could cause anywhere between $6.9 to $14.7 billion in economic losses and between $1.5 and $2.8 billion in industry insured losses. That is one among many findings in a recent report published by Lloyd's of London in partnership with the American Institutes for Research (AIR), which explores the impact a cloud failure could have on the economy.

The results of the report were based on the top 15 unnamed cloud providers in the U.S., which together constitute a 70% market share. In the event of three to six days of cloud downtime, the report found that Fortune 1000 companies will carry 37% of the ground-up losses and 43% of the insured losses.

Businesses outside the Fortune 1000 are potentially at the greatest risk, carrying 63% share of economic losses and 57% of insured losses. I know that law firms consider being out of business 3-6 days unimaginable.

The corollary to a cloud disaster is mitigating your risk through cyber insurance. As the report says, "Organizations large and small are investing in risk and loss mitigation, including preventative security and post event recovery measures. The continued expansion of the cyber insurance market is both necessary and inevitable. Taking proactive measures now to build a risk-based cyber insurance ecosystem, ahead of the next truly catastrophic event, is essential to establishing more resilient communities and businesses."

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