As crowds gather for some of the year’s top sporting events – from Royal Ascot and Wimbledon to the Women’s Rugby World Cup – services from the National Grid to data centres powering the cloud are put under pressure to perform just as well as the sports stars.
But cybercriminals like to take advantage of global attention and often carry out cyberattacks on such events to cause visible disruption. Last summer’s Paris Olympics is a prime example – French authorities reported that over 140 cyberattacks attempted to interrupt the games (though none were successful, thanks to excellent planning and response).
However, while the intended targets may be the events themselves, they are not always the ones most affected.
Collateral damage: The overlooked business risk
Enterprises are often affected indirectly, through compromised suppliers, vulnerable cloud services, or outages at infrastructure providers. Think of supply chains brought to a standstill by ransomware at an IT partner, or telecom outages after an attack on network technology.
Today’s digitally connected economies make the ripple effects of a single compromised node potentially widespread. Any organisation that is part of a digital supply chain is at risk of downtime, reputational damage, or lost revenue – even without being hacked directly.
Cyber experts call this collateral damage. In today’s threat landscape, it is no longer the exception; it’s the rule.
True resilience starts with recovery
Many businesses remain focused primarily on prevention: firewalls, access control, and cybersecurity awareness. These are necessary, but not sufficient to keep enterprises running in a state of continuous business. The reality is that no system is fully secure. The critical question is no longer if something will happen, but how quickly you can recover and safely resume operations afterwards.
That makes recovery capability a strategic asset. A backup alone does not guarantee continuity. What matters is speed, reliability, and whether your entire organisation knows how to respond when systems go down. Even more crucial is the integrity of those backups – they must be free from malware, clean, and tested in controlled environments such as cleanrooms. Forensics analysis is equally vital: investigate how the attack occurred and what weaknesses were exploited to prevent future breaches.
This takes more than just technology; it requires board-level planning and governance.
Not just an IT issue, but a strategic imperative
Digital continuity is no longer just an IT matter, but rather it’s now a leadership responsibility too. Like financial or operational risks, cyber resilience belongs in the boardroom.
Still, many companies lack a thoughtful recovery strategy. There are often no tested emergency protocols, no isolated backups, and little awareness of supply chain dependencies. When a crisis hits, it’s often too late to learn that you had a fire extinguisher, but never practiced putting out a fire.
A strong response starts with three basic questions:
- What happens if we lose system access for five days?
- Are our backups attack-resistant and tested under pressure (can we quickly recover)?
- Do employees know their role during a cyber incident?
If any of these answers raise doubt, it’s time to act – before an incident occurs.
Preparation is key
In many ways, big international events such as the summer sporting events that capture our attention serve as a stress test for everyone involved, as well as those who aren’t. Having a checklist in place of what critical IT systems need to be prioritised in case of any disruption – and how to do this quickly and efficiently – should be a top concern for business leaders this summer. In doing so, organisations can help prevent unnecessary chaos should a disater strike when they least expect it.
The world is full of risks, but business continuity can be planned. As the old saying goes: if you fail to prepare, you should prepare to fail.
Darren Thomson
Darren Thomson is Field CTO EMEAI at Commvault, driving innovation in cyber resilience, threat detection, and rapid recovery. He previously held senior roles at One Identity, CyberCube, Lloyd’s of London, Symantec, and Veritas.
