What risks are we worried about?
A year's losses are over your tolerance from €684k up
Failed IT change or update takes core systems down is the biggest risk: 43% of the expected loss. Expected loss is €1.2M a year in total. 11% of years pass your once-in-20-years limit (€3M); you accept 5%.
Against your tolerance, in one year
- Almost every year you accept losing more than €50k. Today that happens in 64% of years.
- Half the years you accept losing more than €400k. Today that happens in 42% of years.
- Once in 20 years you accept losing more than €3M. Today that happens in 11% of years — over your tolerance.
- Whole curve: Over your tolerance from €684k up.
Scope
Illustrative example: a mid-size manufacturer and distributor (about €300M revenue) that depends on its ERP, warehouse systems and a handful of critical suppliers. Business disruption risk - losing operations for days to weeks - is weighed against resilience investments. Lost revenue and recovery costs are counted in each scenario's cost; outage hours are shown for information.
EUR · 3-year horizon
Loss tolerance
€3,000,000 a year, about once in 20 years
Shaped as a curve: €50,000 almost every year, €400,000 half the years
Loss scenarios
Ransomware halts operations Exp. loss €365,503/yr
Ransomware encrypts the ERP and warehouse systems; orders, production planning and shipping stop until systems are restored from backup or rebuilt.
| Rate of occurrence | Once every 10 years (Somewhat sure) Industry reports put a disruptive ransomware attack on a mid-size firm at roughly 5-10% a year. |
| Primary loss | €1,500,000 typical / €12,000,000 worst case Lost gross margin while shipping is stopped, incident response, rebuild and overtime. Worst case: weeks of partial operations. |
| Secondary loss | 40.0% chance — €300,000 / €3,000,000 Late-delivery penalties in customer contracts, legal advice, regulator notification (NIS2). |
| Duration | 120.0–720.0 hours |
| Actor(s) | External |
| Action | Hacking Malware |
| Impact(s) | Integrity Availability |
Critical supplier knocked out by a cyberattack Exp. loss €326,211/yr
A key supplier or IT service provider (logistics platform, hosted ERP, contract manufacturer) is hit by an attack and cannot deliver; we cannot ship what depends on them.
| Rate of occurrence | Once every 5 years (Unsure) Several dozen suppliers, a handful of them critical; little visibility into their security. |
| Primary loss | €400,000 typical / €6,000,000 worst case Lost sales and expediting costs while switching to alternatives. Worst case: a sole-source supplier is out for weeks. |
| Secondary loss | 20.0% chance — €150,000 / €1,500,000 Penalties we owe our own customers that the supplier contract doesn't pass through. |
| Duration | 72.0–504.0 hours |
| Actor(s) | Partner |
| Action | Hacking Malware |
| Impact(s) | Availability |
Failed IT change or update takes core systems down Exp. loss €531,637/yr
A faulty patch, configuration change or vendor update (rolled out everywhere at once) takes the ERP or the network down until it is rolled back.
| Rate of occurrence | Once every year (Pretty sure) About one significant change-related outage a year over the last five years. |
| Primary loss | €150,000 typical / €2,000,000 worst case A day of lost output and staff time typically; worst case a fleet-wide update bricks endpoints and servers for days. |
| Secondary loss | 10.0% chance — €50,000 / €500,000 |
| Duration | 8.0–72.0 hours |
| Actor(s) | Internal |
| Action | Error |
| Impact(s) | Availability |