Introduction
Both natural disasters and cyber-attacks have adverse effects on all types of businesses. Natural disasters entail catastrophic events that are a result of processes that occur without human intervention and have multiple adverse effects. On the other hand, cyber-attacks, which are becoming a global challenge, go far beyond financial losses. Both natural disasters and cyber-attacks can impact the finances, operations, reputations, valuation, and staff, which have immense damage to the overall business affected. Natural disasters tend to cause disruptions and damage to property, disrupt the supply chain, and could also lead to loss of lives, among other disruptions. As the Cyberattacks become more lucrative, they have long-term and short-term effects on a business. There is a need for businesses to be prepared concerning responsiveness as a way of ensuring that they are ready to deal with any disruptions brought about by natural disasters or cyber-attacks.
Major natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes are so damaging to businesses that the majority of small businesses that get hit by one of the disasters could shut down forever. Having a disaster plan incorporated into a business and documented gives a business a professional impression (Department of Homeland Security, 2020). It is also critical that it gives employees confidence in their working environment and that they are happy to work in the company for the long term.
Natural disaster preparedness means that the company cares for the safety of its employees. For example, a storm or hurricane is likely to damage electric poles and wires, and if there is no preparedness, it could result in the death of staff members (FEMA, 2015). Therefore, a significant advantage is that the company will be concerned with the well-being of the employees and ensure that they do not get any physical harm due to any disaster. Disaster preparedness is an essential aspect since it also helps in sharing of crucial knowledge and information with the employees. They also get updated with any changes as a way of getting disaster preparedness and have a recovery plan in case of any disaster. As a result, employers can get the best response to any situation instantly and help in the recovery.
On the issue of cyberattacks, larger businesses are more likely to experience an attack. Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean that small and medium enterprises are prone to risks.
Having a preparedness strategy against cyber-attacks helps a business secure its data and prevents the data from being exposed to external parties (Iyer, 2011). This is since they could access crucial information that can infringe on the privacy of the company’s clients. They can also possibly use such information to commit fraud. Preparedness against cyber-attacks is also essential to a company since it ensures that the employees are conversant with the possible IT risks and have measures in place to mitigate the risks. Preparedness against attacks also ensures that no data is lost, since a company regularly backs up its data system (AlDairi, 2019). By backing data, the risk of losing everything is reduced if hackers take the company’s system hostage. Good backups also help reduce the need for paying ransoms.
Conclusion
Preparedness against natural disasters and cyber-attacks is essential for any given company. For natural disasters, the firm gets conversant with the best systems to reduce the harm that could be due to any disaster. The employees are also prepared on best measures to undertake to reduce the impacts of the disaster. On the other hand, preparing for cyber-attacks helps ensure that the firm has structures to reduce or completely do away with any related harm.
