Downtime stories
Businesses face greater outage exposure as cloud, automation and AI add hidden dependencies, especially when summer holidays thin IT teams.
Recovery plans are lagging as Asian companies rush into agentic AI, with average incident downtime stretching to 28 days, a survey found.
North American oil and gas, LNG and chemical plants can now use a certified robot to cut risky manual inspections and downtime.
Almost half of ransomware victims discovered breaches only after data theft, underscoring how attackers are evading detection for weeks.
Blind spots in monitoring are pushing outage bills higher, with Splunk estimating average downtime now costs USD $15,000 a minute.
Industrial operators are turning to tighter network controls to curb cyberattacks, with OT now featuring in 26% of Zero Networks deals.
AI attacks are pushing firms to prioritise cyber resiliency, as Everpure warns downtime can exceed ransom demands by up to 75 times.
Outages are now costing Global 2000 firms USD $600 billion a year, as a single incident can wipe 3.4% off share prices.
Experts say AI is accelerating ransomware attacks, shrinking the patching window and forcing organisations to overhaul defences and recovery plans.
Enterprises using Kyndryl Bridge have seen fewer outages and lower maintenance costs as AI flags IT risks before systems fail.
Security teams are struggling to spot intrusions until after data is stolen, with 85% of leaders reporting AI-linked incidents or near misses.
Shared fibre routes can leave supposedly redundant links exposed to the same outage, a risk growing as AI workloads demand uninterrupted connectivity.
Greater spare-parts cover should cut downtime for customers after the Reading-based IT support group lifted stock by almost a third.
Cooling and power systems in data centres could be exposed to remote takeover, threatening uptime as AI workloads drive reliance on critical infrastructure.
Better visibility over outages and latency should help PointsBet protect live-betting customers as it unifies telemetry across its platform.
A shortage of specialist support is leaving ageing bulk-handling machines at Australian mines and ports at risk of costly export delays.
Confidence in defence remains patchy as 68 per cent of UK business leaders plan higher cyber spending and 46 per cent fear new tools widen threats.
Thailand has joined the ransomware top 10 as fewer groups now drive most attacks, raising the cost of each breach for businesses.
Yet only 15 per cent have deployed OT-specific visibility tools, even as cyber incidents have already disrupted critical systems for most respondents.
Predictable income is emerging as MSPs bundle hosting with support, backups and security to reduce churn and lift margins.
