Cyber Risk Is Never Zero — and Underinvestment Can Be a Critical Mistake.
This past weekend, travelers across Europe found themselves stuck in long lines and facing canceled flights as airport systems went offline. A ransomware attack against a widely used airport check-in platform disrupted automated check-in and boarding systems at some of the busiest hubs in London, Berlin, and Brussels. Airlines were forced to revert to manual processes, with internal memos noting that thousands of corrupted systems needed to be rebuilt in person.
At nearly the same time, reports surfaced that a major UK automotive manufacturer suffered an attack that forced it to halt production — and may be left to absorb hundreds of millions in costs while suppliers and government officials scramble to manage the wider impact.
Both incidents highlight a painful reality: ransomware has evolved into a daily operational risk for organizations across industries. The question is no longer if an attack will occur, but when.
The Human and Economic Toll of Cyber Disruption
For passengers and airline staff, these airport incidents meant hours of confusion and delayed travel, for factory workers, outages translated to lost shifts and wages. For both leadership teams, the message is clear: cyber events are enterprise-level operational risks. A single software failure or vendor outage can ripple across industries and geographies in hours.
These disruptions don’t just harm the company that’s directly attacked; they ripple outward. Airline partners, suppliers, and even governments are forced to step in to contain the fallout.
Cybersecurity Is Revenue and Reputation Protection
The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) confirmed that the airport incident was a ransomware attack— one of a rising tide that costs enterprises billions of dollars a year worldwide.
Attacks in the aviation sector alone have risen by 600% year over year. And yet, too many organizations still view cybersecurity as a cost center rather than as protection for revenue and continuity.
Executives often describe two kinds of leaders: those who have already been through a ransomware attack, and those who will. Too often, meaningful investment comes only after experiencing the “whoops” moment of spending millions recovering normal operations.
Savvy executives understand that cybersecurity spend isn’t about preventing every possible attack. It’s about ensuring that when — not if — a breach occurs, operations can recover quickly without catastrophic financial damage. That’s where cyber risk management elevates the conversation. Instead of treating risk in technical silos, leading organizations:
- Centralize assessments across vendors, operations, and IT infrastructure to see risk in one place.
- Continuously monitor and alert on vendor compliance, operational health, potential breaches, and technical vulnerabilities.
- Align with regulatory frameworks, such as SEC cyber rules, DORA, NIS2, etc., to stay audit-ready by design.
- Quantify cyber risk in financial terms to prioritize investments and secure executive buy-in.
- Standardize remediation workflows with templates and playbooks, enabling teams to act quickly.
- Extend visibility to fourth parties to uncover concentration and hidden supply chain risks.
Framing cybersecurity through the lens of risk management transforms it from a reactive cost into a proactive safeguard of business continuity and revenue.
Catastrophe Planning and Third-Party Risk
Both incidents underscore the importance of catastrophe planning, especially in today’s interconnected business landscape. The fallout from a single vendor going offline can cascade through entire industries, as seen with some major healthcare providers when a critical payment processor was targeted.
Building playbooks for catastrophic vendor failures, running tabletop exercises, and designating executive-level roles for decision-making are essential steps for resilience. Companies that already thought through their “what if” scenarios have been able to pivot faster when critical partners suffered downtime.
Supply Chain Concentration Risk on Display
The automotive attack also illustrates a different but related risk: supply chain concentration. With production dependent on a just-in-time supplier model, a single disruption quickly threatened hundreds of smaller businesses. Similarly, airlines’ reliance on one dominant check-in software meant that one ransomware attack rippled across borders almost instantly.
Organizations that diversify their supplier base, map their dependencies, and invest in visibility technologies are better positioned to withstand these types of systemic shocks. Concentration risk — whether geographic, technological, or vendor-specific — is increasingly one of the most overlooked vulnerabilities in cyber resilience.
Moving From Cost Center to Continuity Enabler
What ties both the airport and automotive incidents together is the perception gap around cybersecurity and risk management. These functions are too often siloed under IT and seen purely as overhead. In reality, they are enablers of revenue continuity, brand trust, and customer loyalty.
The organizations that weather ransomware attacks most effectively are those that have already reframed security and risk as part of enterprise value protection. They treat resilience as a competitive advantage, not as an optional insurance policy. This takes on even more importance as cyber insurance companies have increasingly dropped ransomware coverage from their policies or excluded certain events to avoid payouts.
The Wake-Up Call for Every Industry
Airports grinding to a halt, manufacturers freezing production lines, healthcare providers unable to process claims — the examples are multiplying. Cyberattacks are not isolated crises. They are systemic risks that demand systemic responses.
Leaders cannot afford to ask if their organizations will face an attack. The only question is whether they will be ready to recover without missing a beat.
That’s where modern risk and compliance platforms come in. By centralizing IT and cyber risk assessments, continuously monitoring critical vendors, quantifying threats in financial terms, and automating response workflows, organizations can move from reactive firefighting to proactive resilience. The ability to see concentration risks across the supply chain, align with global regulations, and recover quickly when incidents occur is no longer optional — it’s what separates those who endure from those who struggle. Discover the benefits of effective cyber risk management today.
