Published 18th November

Unfortunately, in todays’ digital landscape, cyber attacks are not a rarity…

Sadly, they’re actually becoming more common, A whopping 43% of UK businesses and 30% of charities reported having a cyber attack in the last 12 months according to the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025. Cyber attacks can wreak havoc on your business, causing significant downtime, loss of trust, clients, reputational damage, and hefty fines, and loss of key data.

How many businesses shut after a cyber attack?

While there’s no specific definitive figure on the exact number of businesses forced to close after a cyber attack, some have suggested that up to 60% of small businesses may close within six months of a data breach.

Let’s delve into exactly what can occur to your business if you experience a cyber attack, using real-world examples.

Significant downtime:

Cyber attacks can take different forms, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, ransomware, and malware to corrupt/disable critical functions, which all ultimately result in your IT and services becoming unusable for a time period. While you try and restore back-ups, look into cyber insurance, and remove the virus from your systems, your business will be down, not working, not making money, and not progressing. For ransomware, the most common form of cyber attack, the average downtime is 24 days (Spacelift).

For example, Marks & Spencer’s experienced a 46-day halt to its online operations, and its click and collect service only fully came back online in August, 4 months after.

A successful cyber attack can inflict long downtime on your business, something you really don’t want.

Loss of trust and clients:

If your business undergoes a cyber attack, this sends alarm bells to your clients and seriously damages your reputation. It implies that you’re untrustworthy, their data is at risk, and that if you can’t even manage your cybersecurity, how can you manage their work for them.

Recent research from Experian shows that 69% of people would be discouraged from using a company following a data breach, and who can blame them?

Hefty fines:

While many impacts of a cyber attack can negatively impact your finances, you can also be directly fined too. A government study found that the average cost of a significant cyber attack for an individual business (across all sizes and sectors) is close to £195,000.

For example, the huge outsourcing firm Capita was fined £14 million after 6.6 million people’s data was stolen in a cyber-attack.

The incident forced the firm to work on their cybersecurity, offer support to those impacted and engaged with other regulators and the National Cyber Security Centre.

Theft of key data:

If you have high profile clients, with sensitive data, this is at risk when you experience a cyber attack. Hackers will target specific businesses, such as lawyers, finance professionals and healthcare providers due to the value of the information they can steal. If they obtain confidential information, trade secrets or key data of clients, this could lead to significant problems for your business.

All roads lead to cybersecurity:

Proper cybersecurity and Cyber Essentials certification is the antidote to the recent cyber attack chaos.

Firms that take a proactive approach to cybersecurity significantly reduce their risk of cyber attack, and studies show that businesses who take up Cyber Essentials certification are 80% less likely to experience a cyber attack, and 92% less likely to make a Cyber Insurance claim.

Firms looking to take their cybersecurity seriously should also be conducting regular penetration tests and vulnerability scans. These help businesses to identify any weaknesses and vulnerabilities across your IT environment, ensuring your defences are resistant to attacks.

RedDoor IT:

At RedDoor IT, we love helping businesses take back control of their cybersecurity. We’ve helped many businesses, such as Osborn Knight Solicitors secure Cyber Essentials certification:

“We use RedDoor IT for our Cyber Essentials, and we are pleased to recommend them.

They are responsive, knowledgeable and helpful and made what felt like a very daunting and complicated process seem simple and manageable.”

If you’re looking to make your business more secure, trustworthy and win more contracts, get in touch with one of our tech experts today.