'Downtime is inevitable; prolonged disruption is not': Unplanned downtime is now costing businesses billions each year

Date:
Tue, 26 May 2026 09:43:22 +0000

Description:
Downtime threatens businesses with lost revenue, reputational damage and huge staffing costs. Many even misclassify attacks before they can start fixing them.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The average Global 2000 company faces a $15,000 cost per minute after an incident or outage, Splunk study finds Customers are often the first to notice an incident, causing major reputational damage With many falsely identifying attacks as IT issues, greater observability is needed New data from Splunk has claimed unplanned downtime now costs Global 2000 companies around $600 billion every year,
which marks a 50% increase over the past two years.

Splunk reported the average G2000 company faces a per-minute cost of $15,000 when an outage occurs, which translates to an average annual revenue loss of $95 million. But the costs extend far beyond just revenue, with the average firm seeing a 3.4% drop in stock prices. Regulatory fines also average the not-so-insignificant sum of $51 million, the company revealed. Latest Videos From You may like 'Skipping a beat on resilience investment isnt an option
any more': IT incidents can cost firms huge amounts - here's how to stay on top of issues British businesses still arent bouncing back from cyberattacks heres how to tackle the problem Why one outage can still take down half the internet The hidden costs of downtime Severe cyberattacks continue to rise, with high-profile incidents like those of M&S and Jaguar Land Rover in 2025 dominating the headlines, but it's not just the frequency that's rising. It's also costs, with the average ransomware payout nearly tripling since 2024 to $40 million.

One of the more unquantifiable outcomes is a loss in brand reputation, with half (47%) of tech leaders revealing that customers are among the first to notice service disruptions. Four in five (81%) believe this results in customer loss.

Then there's the human resources needed to rectify issues one in five marketers say it takes them an entire quarter to get back to their previous state.

Time to resolution is another issue, with a third (36%) of security leaders reporting that downtime is often wrongly attributed to an IT issue rather
than a security breach, severely slowing identification and remediation
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"Downtime is inevitable," SVP and GM Kamal Hathi said, but "prolonged disruption is not."

Hathi believes that "align[ing] technology with business outcomes, empower[ing] people with context, and design[ing] systems that bend, but do not break, under pressure" often the best results, indicating a greater need for observability and context. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as
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