Bankrupt: how cyber attacks can devastate businesses (part 2)
17th September 2025
Some cyber attacks could take down your business not just for a day, but permanently.
We’re back, with more cyber security incidents that were so damaging, they sunk businesses. Heed the warnings that come from these examples and make changes to your IT so that if you are attacked, your business can survive:
DigiNotar (Netherlands)
A digital certificate authority who issued certificates for major sites like Google and Skype, DigiNotar was breached in 2011 by man-in-the-middle attacks that were targeting users in Iran. To rectify the issue, the Dutch government had to take over operations, and within weeks the company had collapsed.
In this case, another smaller company wasn’t prepared for a cyber-attack – the threat to smaller businesses can’t be undersold. Additionally, the fact that DigiNotar was a known name in the digital space makes you think that they would be better prepared: evidently, anyone can be victim to an attack, even those you might think of as experts.
National Public Data (USA)
Another US based company, National Public Data was attacked in 2024. A background check provider, the company held a lot of important data that was compromised via a zip file on the company’s website. 2.9 billion records were leaked, impacting 170 million people, leading to lawsuits, regulatory investigations and massive reputational damage. National Public Data attempted to recover but eventually filed for bankruptcy.
Again, another company targeted because of the important data they held. Consider: could cyber criminals use the data your company has to extort you if they breached your systems and do you have a plan in place to counteract such an attack?
Travelex (UK)
Travelex was a major foreign exchange company that was hit with an attack on New Year’s Eve 2019. Bad actors using the REvil ransomware demanded $6 million: Travelex paid a reduced ransom, but it didn’t stop them from eventually going into administration. The attack impacted their services for weeks – all because a VPN issue, that the government had warned them about, had resulted in a breach.
This example is the saddest of the bunch due to the size of Travelex and the amount of jobs lost. The fact that Covid came just after and travel was mostly halted had an additional impact, but ultimately ignoring the advice of experts was Travelex’s downfall. Furthermore, paying the ransom, even in part, had no impact other than giving criminals what they want – advice from the National Cyber Security Centre is to never pay a ransom, as it just encourages more attacks in future.
As you can see, cyber attacks can have a significant impact on businesses. It isn’t just the loss of revenue, but the loss of jobs that business owners really need to consider: it is one thing to have reduced profits, it is another to tell employees that they are losing their jobs over something that could have been avoided.
If you would like to expand your cyber security to avoid an incident like this, talk to Interfuture Security: we’d be happy to advise you.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/DSjcuofRJmc