Cyber Attack – One Step Too Late

When you find out that your company has been attacked, that's not the beginning of the problem. That's the end. The ransomware is already inside your system. The data has already been extracted. Access to your key resources has already been sold on the dark web. And you only find out when the systems stop working, when clients ask uncomfortable questions, when the regulator knocks on the door – or worse, from the media.

And then the classic scenario begins: crisis meetings, panic search for solutions, an attempt to control the damage. External experts are hired, those responsible are sought, and losses are counted. But what is often forgotten is that the real decision about whether your company will survive this attack was made long before you even noticed it, when you didn't want to notice.

What many also do not want to admit is that the responsibility lies solely with... Not at the CISO. Not on the IT team. Not on external consultants. CEO, CFO, COO, board member, or owner, makes decisions that directly affect whether an organization will be an easy target. Cyber attacks fail because hackers are unstoppably brilliant. They succeed because decisions at the highest level of management are predictably bad.

One of the surest signs that you've already been hacked without realizing it is the fact that no one at the management level is talking about security. If security is not an integral part of the business strategy if it is not discussed with digital transformation, innovation, investments, investments, and business optimization, then you are not managing the risk – you are ignoring it. If the only information you receive about security is that which comes through periodic IT reports on the implemented tools, and not real figures on real threats and attack simulations, then you do not have a realistic picture of the state of your organization.

Most companies believe that they are in control of their data, but the truth is that attackers often already have it. Although it appears to you that the systems are under control, advanced attacks do not come through an obvious door. The average time that attackers spend inside the network without being noticed is more than two hundred days. During this time, they carefully map your infrastructure, identify key resources, analyze financial flows, and prepare the ground for the moment they strike. When an attack finally occurs, it is not the beginning of the problem – it is the final act of an operation that may have been underway for months.

Security is often underestimated because it is misperceived as a technical problem. But attacks fail because of software vulnerabilities – they succeed because of the vulnerability of people and processes. If your company has never conducted a simulated and targeted phishing test with a clear goal (and not just because everyone is doing it or writing it somewhere), then you can't say for sure that you know how your employees will react to sophisticated social engineering attacks. The CFO will click on an urgent request that looks like it's coming from you. The legal department will download the document containing the malicious code, and the HR department will open the CV of the open job application. All of them are used to making quick decisions under pressure, and that's exactly what attackers take advantage of. Security is not technical, it is psychological.

But perhaps the biggest misconception among executives is the belief that regulation and compliance are the same as security. NIS2, DORA, GDPR, and other regulatory frameworks bring a certain level of protection, but compliance is not the same as security. Organizations that approach cybersecurity as another bureaucratic checklist don't really grasp its essence. A documented incident response plan that has never been tested in real-world conditions has no value. If your plan doesn't have a clear procedure for who makes decisions in a moment of crisis, and if that person doesn't have the authority to decide whether to pay the ransom if that's the only option to get the data back – then you don't really have a plan.

And while most organizations invest millions in internal security systems, few pay enough attention to third parties. Your security perimeter isn't just your servers and employees. These are all partners, suppliers, and subcontractors who have access to your systems. If you don't know which of them has access to your key data, how their systems are protected, and whether they have passed security checks, then you have not secured your own business. Attackers often use your partner's weaknesses to get to you.

When everything is considered, the real question is not whether your company will be attacked because the answer to that is clear – it will. The real question is whether you will survive that attack. Most companies won't, because they will realize too late that they have ignored the signals that have been present all along.

Those who survive are not necessarily those who have the best security tools, but those who made the right decisions in time. If you have identified yourself in any of these scenarios, you have two options. You can wait for the attack to become visible and then react – when it is already too late. Or you can recognize that security is a business decision and start making the right decisions now.

Ultimately, if you want to know if you are a target, the answer is simple. If you're connected to the internet, yes. The only question is whether you will figure it out before or after your data ends up being sold.