The Real Cyber Threat to SMBs Isn’t Hackers…It’s Downtime
When most businesses think about cybersecurity, they imagine hackers in hoodies, ransomware, or phishing emails. Those are real problems, but they are not the real killer. The biggest cyber threat to SMBs is downtime.
Every minute your systems are down, you are losing revenue, customers, and trust.
What Is the Real Cost of Downtime for SMBs?
Industry research from Gartner estimates the average cost of IT downtime at $5,600 per minute. That number is not just an IT issue. It represents sales that cannot be processed, employees who cannot work, customers who cannot reach you, and payroll that does not run.
Multiply that by an hour, or even a day, and the numbers are staggering. For SMBs, downtime is more than an inconvenience. It is a direct hit to cash flow, customer relationships, and brand reputation.
The Business Impact of Cyber Incidents
Large enterprises can sometimes absorb days of downtime. Most SMBs cannot. The National Cyber Security Alliance has reported that as many as 60% of small businesses close within six months of a major cyber incident. Not because the hacker was unstoppable, but because the downtime was too expensive to recover from.
Downtime is the hidden cyber tax on SMBs.
Why You Should Calculate Your Downtime Cost
The $5,600 per minute figure is an industry average. Your actual cost could be higher or lower depending on your average daily revenue, your employee count, and the type of industry you operate in. Downtime in healthcare looks very different from downtime in retail or professional services.
That is why we built the Downtime Calculator. It allows you to plug in your numbers and see what even a few hours offline could cost your business.
From Cybersecurity to Business Resilience
Cybersecurity is not just about stopping hackers. It is about keeping your business running. That requires preventing incidents where possible, detecting them quickly, and having the tools and processes to recover fast.
Because the hacker is not your biggest risk. The real danger is lost revenue, lost trust, and lost time.
When you treat cybersecurity as a business resilience strategy, you protect more than data. You protect your cash flow, your customers, and your ability to stay open.<
