Cyber Resilience Over Cybersecurity: Why Being Ready for a Breach Matters in 2025

The way businesses think about security has changed a lot in the digital age. The old idea of "cybersecurity", which was all about prevention and protection, is now being replaced by a more practical idea called "cyber resilience".

While cybersecurity is still a key part of a company's defence, the ability to respond and quickly recover from an attack has become most important for a company. Hackers are getting smarter, so it's no longer a question of "if" a breach will happen, but "when". 2025 is about being ready for a breach, rather than just relying on standard cybersecurity safeguards.

Traditionally, cybersecurity has been about building a strong wall to keep bad guys out. This includes using tools like firewalls, antivirus software, and strong passwords to stop attackers and make the system a hard target. The problem with this approach is that it assumes that a perfect defence is possible. This is not necessarily true today.

The World Economic Forum's Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 highlights that the increase in cyberattacks results from global tensions, new technology like AI, and how companies rely on many partners. The number of ways a company can be attacked has grown significantly in recent years.

Cybercrime has become an enormous business, and attackers use AI to make attacks bigger and faster. The CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report found that, on average, a successful attack can break within just 48 minutes. A strategy that only focuses on prevention will fail when attacks happen this frequently.

This is why cyber resilience has become so important. Instead of just focusing on stopping the attack, cyber resilience also aims to keep the system intact when an attack gets through. It's a plan that assumes breaches will happen and focuses on a company's ability to handle the attack, bounce back, and continue operating normally.

Cyber resilience includes having a clear plan for what to do during an incident and ensuring all the data and systems can be recovered quickly. A sound cyber resilience plan can have huge financial benefits to companies. The average cost of a data breach worldwide is now about USD 4.76 million, with some sectors like healthcare and finance seeing costs over USD 9.5 million, according to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025.

These costs include the ransom, the lost business, upset customers, a damaged reputation, and legal fees. The report also found that finding and fixing a breach involving stolen credentials takes an average of 292 days. So, a company that can quickly find and contain a violation will save a lot of money and get back on its feet faster.

Real-world examples show how very valuable cyber resilience is. A company that regularly backs up its data can quickly restore its systems after a ransomware attack without giving in to the hackers' demands. A good example of what not to do is the British Library, which struggled for a year after a cyberattack to get its systems back to normal because it lacked a strong resilience plan.

On the other hand, companies with solid breach readiness plans, including practice runs and backup systems, can tell their leaders and customers how their preparation helped them reduce losses and recover faster. A key tool in this is microsegmentation, isolating critical systems to stop an attacker from moving around and doing more damage. A breach-ready company can keep 60-80% of its business running during an attack, which is a vast difference from the 0-20% for a company with no plan. This is the difference between a disaster and a manageable problem.

Being ready for a breach is also important because of regulations and high customer expectations. Governments and consumers want companies to be more open and responsible as attacks become common. A company that can show that it has a mature, well-practised plan for handling incidents is seen as more trustworthy.

The UK's National Audit Office report on cyber resilience in 2025 also highlighted how government-backed hackers are getting smarter and how public organisations need to work together to improve their resilience. The same goes for private companies, where an attack on one partner can affect many others.

While cybersecurity is still the first line of defence, just focusing on prevention is not enough in 2025. The increasing number and complexity of attacks mean breaches are inevitable. Because of this, the smart move is to focus on cyber resilience.

Companies can reduce the financial and reputational harm from an attack, keep their business running, and build trust by preparing for the worst. The companies that do well in the coming years will be the ones that have moved beyond just building higher walls and have invested in contingencies for what to do when those walls are breached.

Written By -- Dipal Dutta, CEO, RedoQ

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