Cyber Crime
Bringing Clarity to Cyber Risk: Why the Cyber Monitoring Centre Matters
Cyber threats are no longer distant concerns. They are a daily reality for organisations of all sizes, with attacks disrupting operations, supply chains, and causing financial and reputational damage. Yet, despite this, many business leaders still struggle to quantify the true cost of an attack.
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That is why the launch of the Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC) by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) is a welcome development. As an independent, non-profit initiative, the CMC aims to categorise major cyber incidents based on financial impact, offering much-needed transparency into the scale and severity of breaches.
For years, cybersecurity professionals have emphasised the need for businesses to take a more proactive approach to cyber risk. Now, with a standardised framework for assessing cyber incidents, boards have a new tool to help them understand the financial exposure their organisations face.
The CMC’s categorisation system, which ranks cyber incidents on a scale of one to five, provides a straightforward way for organisations to gauge the severity of cyberattacks. By dynamically assessing risk, business leaders can become better informed about the potential harm and costs their organisations could face, either directly or through their supply chains.
Having a clear, structured scale is particularly useful in raising awareness at board level, where cybersecurity is often seen as a technical issue rather than a strategic risk. By framing cyber incidents in financial terms, the CMC is shifting the conversation to one that resonates with executives and decision-makers. Of course, there will be debate around some of the categorisation decisions, as cyber risk assessment is an evolving field. The methodology will need to be refined as more data becomes available. However, the introduction of a structured framework is an important step forward.
Financial vs human cost of cyberattacks
While the CMC’s focus is on measuring financial damage, it is important not to overlook the wider human impact of cyber incidents. The consequences of a breach go beyond lost revenue and operational downtime.
For example, the Synnovis cyberattack caused major disruption to medical testing in the UK, leading to at least two patients suffering long-term or permanent health damage. In such cases, the service disruption caused by an attack can be more damaging than the data loss itself, depending on the organisation targeted and the sensitivity of the services affected.
This is something organisations must keep in mind. While financial metrics are critical for risk assessment, they cannot be the only consideration when evaluating the true cost of an attack. Cyber incidents can have severe emotional and physical consequences, particularly in sectors such as healthcare, finance, and critical infrastructure.
The launch of the CMC marks a significant step towards a more data-driven approach to cyber risk. The ability to assess and categorise incidents using a standardised scale will help businesses and insurers make more informed decisions. More importantly, it will help shift cybersecurity from a reactive, technical issue to a core business risk that demands board-level attention.
But this should only be the beginning. Organisations must continue to refine their understanding of cyber risk—not just in financial terms, but in terms of the real-world consequences that breaches can cause. Cyber resilience is about more than numbers; it is about protecting people, services, and trust in the digital economy. The introduction of this framework is an opportunity for business leaders to move beyond vague risk discussions and take decisive action to strengthen their cyber defences. Those who fail to do so risk learning the true cost of cyberattacks the hard way.