*By Caio Abbot
With the sophistication of cyber threats, digital security has inevitably come to occupy a strategic place in companies' planning. The expectation that global investments in information security will grow by 15% in 2025, reaching US$ 212 billion, according to Gartner, reinforces the market's increasingly clear perception that data protection is essential for business continuity and growth.
In Brazil, this need becomes even more evident given the rise in financial scams. A report by ACI Worldwide, in partnership with the consultancy GlobalData, indicates that losses from fraud involving Pix could generate annual losses of up to R$11 billion (US$1.937 billion) for Brazilian banks and consumers over the next three years. Much of this fraud is linked to social engineering attacks, which usually exploit human vulnerabilities rather than technical flaws.
And what does this mean? The data presented in the report indicates that cyber threats are increasingly not limited to system intrusions, but include rapid and highly effective attacks that require an equally agile response to minimize damage.
Therefore, incident response time is one of the most critical factors in mitigating the impacts of an attack. According to the report Cost of a Data Breach 2024, from IBM, the average global cost of a data breach reached US$4.88 million, representing an increase of 10% from the previous year.
In Brazil, the average time to identify and contain a breach was 299 days, but the difference in costs between agile and slow responses is significant. Companies that resolved incidents in less than 200 days had an average cost of R$5.49 million, while those that exceeded this timeframe faced an average loss of R$8.01 million per breach. This is because the exposure window defines the degree of damage: the longer a threat remains active, the greater the chance of data exfiltration, service disruption, and financial impact.
The industrial sector illustrates this vulnerability well. To give you an idea, in 2024, there was a 9% increase in the number of vulnerabilities reported in industrial systems, as warned by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Companies such as Siemens, Rockwell Automation and Schneider Electric were among the most affected, largely due to their dependence on legacy technologies and lack of effective incident response protocols. The scenario shows that, without an agile detection and containment mechanism, organizations remain exposed for longer, increasing the damage.
According to CrowdStrike’s 2024 Global Threat Report, the average time to compromise for e-crime in 2023 was just 62 minutes, with the fastest recorded attack occurring in just 2 minutes and 7 seconds. Furthermore, over 88% of that time was spent gaining initial access, and once inside, it took attackers just 31 seconds to run an initial discovery tool. These numbers demonstrate how adversaries are becoming increasingly agile, reducing the scope for companies to react.
To reduce risks, companies need to invest in three essential pillars: continuous monitoring, response automation, and team training. Using artificial intelligence to detect suspicious patterns and activate automated responses significantly reduces reaction time. At the same time, well-defined processes and ongoing training ensure that security teams know exactly how to act in the face of a threat, eliminating operational failures that could compromise the containment of the attack.
More than a technical issue, the ability to respond quickly to cyberattacks can define the real impact of a breach. The evolution of threats shows that protection cannot be based solely on defensive barriers. Strategies that combine artificial intelligence, automation and teams prepared to act with precision must be taken into account. The escalation of costs associated with incidents reinforces the idea that digital security must be treated as an essential investment within businesses. After all, the way a company reacts to a threat can determine not only the size of the financial loss, but also the trust it maintains with its customers and partners.
*Caio Abade is Cybersecurity Executive at Betta Global Partner, a Brazilian technology and innovation company specialized in solutions integration.
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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