In today’s unpredictable threat landscape, cybersecurity isn’t just an IT concern—it’s a critical business initiative with direct impact on your organization’s bottom line and brand reputation. As threat actors grow increasingly sophisticated, security leaders face mounting pressure to demonstrate the tangible value of their cybersecurity investments.
The Financial and Business Impact of Cyber Risks
Cyber threats pose far more than just technical challenges—they carry significant financial and operational consequences that can affect an organization’s bottom line, stakeholder confidence, and long-term sustainability. Recent research quantifies that impact: the average cost of a data breach now stands at $4.88 million, and the aftermath of cybersecurity incidents often extends well beyond the immediate financial losses.
For businesses, the equation is simple yet profound: effective cybersecurity risk reduction directly translates to business value. By implementing proactive threat intelligence and comprehensive security measures, organizations can:
- Prevent revenue losses from operational disruptions
- Avoid costly fraud and impersonation schemes
- Strengthen customer trust and brand reputation
- Reduce cyber insurance premiums
- Minimize recovery costs from security incidents
The Cost of Cyber Risks to Businesses
According to new research conducted with hundreds of Recorded Future customers, organizations are seeing substantial ROI from their threat intelligence investments in areas that extend far beyond traditional security metrics. The data, compiled in Recorded Future’s comprehensive 2025 ROI Report, “How Recorded Future Drives ROI for Cybersecurity Teams,” reveals how mature threat intelligence programs translate directly to business resilience and financial benefits.
Brand Reputation Impact
When a company falls victim to a cyber attack, the damage to brand reputation can be substantial and long-lasting. Typosquatting—the practice of creating deceptively similar domain names to legitimate websites—often serves as vectors for phishing attacks that can compromise customer data and customer trust.
Recorded Future customers reported that they are now 51% more efficient at taking down typosquatting instances. Swift typosquat mitigation not only helps combat phishing attempts, but it also enables your customers to seamlessly carry out the actions they set out to accomplish by visiting your site. We see that as an increase in web traffic that we can quantify the value of with the help of research by the University of Illinois.
An average billion-dollar business sees 2 million monthly web visits. At an average loss rate of 5.28% due to typosquatting according to research from University of Illinois, more efficient typosquat takedowns with Recorded Future would help them recover over 50,000 website visits each month — and an expected $2,602 monthly value.
“We have improved brand protection by at least 100%. We can identify risks and patterns in infancy stages, and we’ve automated brand scanning to eliminate hours of manual work. As we automate more coverage, we have saved hundreds of labor hours per quarter and improved efficiency,” reports Joe Azzouggagh, Manager of Trust and Safety at ruby.
Cyber Insurance Considerations
As cyber attacks have become more prevalent, cyber insurance has evolved from a nice-to-have to a business necessity. However, premiums can be substantial, particularly for organizations that face significant risk.
Based on observable market data and the average 2024 cost of a breach being $4.88 million, a typical billion-dollar company likely pays a yearly premium of $207,400, or $35-50,000 per million of coverage.
Recorded Future customers report average monthly premium savings of $2,497—approximately $30,000 annually. One customer, Cummins, achieved an impressive 32% year-over-year reduction in cyber insurance premiums after implementing Recorded Future’s threat intelligence platform.
Operational Disruption and Downtime
Service disruptions resulting from cyber incidents carry dual consequences: immediate revenue losses and lasting reputational damage. Reducing operational risk has become a priority for organizations of all sizes. When systems go offline due to ransomware or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, every minute of downtime translates to financial impact.
Our customers report that threat intelligence from Recorded Future helps minimize downtime, which for a billion-dollar organization translates to an average revenue value of approximately $19,025 per month—or nearly $230,000 annually. This calculation doesn’t even account for the additional benefit of avoiding reputational damage that inevitably accompanies service disruptions.
“Recorded Future allows us to shift our mindset from being more reactive in nature to being more proactive and responsive to threats that went unnoticed in the past. This, in turn, has facilitated the development of new processes that have enhanced the overall security posture of the business,” explains a Lead Cyber Defense Engineer at a major food and staples retailing company.
Fraud Prevention
Payment fraud, transaction fraud, and billing schemes represent significant financial threats to businesses across industries. Through comprehensive threat intelligence, organizations can identify and mitigate these risks before they materialize into actual losses.
Recorded Future’s threat intelligence helps customers reduce fraud losses. A billion-dollar business that loses $500,000 annually to payment fraud losses would recover over $6,812 per month through improved threat intelligence with Recorded Future. Outside of the payments themselves, fraud loss mitigation also contributes financially by strengthening the integrity and trustworthiness of your business.
As one customer, a Senior Information Security Analyst at Jefferson Bank, noted: “We use Recorded Future’s dark web intelligence to proactively stop attacks, reset weak passwords, or prevent bank card fraud. This has a potential savings of $1,000-2,000 depending on the customer or situation.”
All Together: The ROI of Business and Brand Risk Reduction with Recorded Future
Across all risk reduction areas, customers can save approximately $31,000 monthly—or $371,000 yearly.
This substantial return breaks down into several key components:
- $2,602 monthly from brand reputation protection
- $2,497 monthly from reduced cyber insurance premiums
- $19,025 monthly from downtime avoidance/increased uptime
- $6,812 monthly from fraud loss prevention
Together, these savings represent a 209.4% ROI on business risk reduction alone. When combined with the productivity improvements that threat intelligence enables (an additional 141.9% ROI), Recorded Future customers achieve a total of 351.3% ROI annually.
Implementing a Proactive Cybersecurity Strategy
To realize the full business impact of threat intelligence, organizations should follow a structured approach to implementation:
1. Define Business-Centric Security Priorities
Begin by identifying your organization’s “crown jewels”—the critical assets, data, and operations that would cause significant harm if compromised. This is a fundamental principle of business risk management. Work with business leadership to understand what matters most to the organization’s success and prioritize security efforts accordingly.
2. Assess Threats in Business Context
Not all vulnerabilities will be exploited, and not all threats pose an immediate risk to your specific organization. Use threat intelligence to focus first on responding to the threats that present actual risk to your people, assets, and business objectives.
3. Leverage Automation to Increase Efficiency
With proper automation, security teams can dramatically reduce manual effort while improving response times. By automating routine tasks like alert enrichment and correlation, analysts can focus on strategic threat hunting and proactive security initiatives.
4. Measure and Communicate Business Impact
Track and report on security metrics that matter to business leaders, such as:
- Reduced cyber insurance premiums
- Avoided fraud losses
- Increased uptime
- Accelerated response times
- Brand protection efforts
5. Mature Your Program Over Time
As your threat intelligence program matures, continuously refine your approach to address evolving business needs and emerging threats. This might include expanding monitoring to new digital channels, deepening integration with business systems, or enhancing threat hunting capabilities.
Conclusion: Protecting Business Continuity Through Cyber Risk Reduction
The data is clear: By implementing comprehensive threat intelligence from Recorded Future, organizations can not only prevent security incidents but also demonstrate tangible ROI through business risk reduction.
With 57% of customers reporting that Recorded Future has significantly reduced their organization’s overall cyber risk, the platform has proven its ability to deliver meaningful business impact. From protecting brand reputation and reducing cyber insurance premiums to preventing downtime and fraud losses, threat intelligence serves as a foundational element of business resilience.
In today’s threat landscape, organizations that understand the business value of cybersecurity will maintain competitive advantage through stronger customer trust, operational resilience, and financial stability. By using threat intelligence to reduce risk strategically, security leaders can position their teams as essential contributors to business success rather than cost centers.
The message for business and security leaders is clear: investing in comprehensive threat intelligence isn’t just a security requirement—it’s a business imperative with measurable returns.
Discover the Full Impact
Want to learn more about how threat intelligence can protect your brand, reduce costs, and strengthen your business? Download the complete 2025 Recorded Future ROI Report to explore detailed metrics on both business impact and team productivity improvements.
Research methodology: UserEvidence conducted two distinct surveys with Recorded Future customers (117 participants in July 2024 and over 170 participants in November 2024) to collect quantitative ROI data and qualitative feedback. All research was verified and authenticated according to UserEvidence’s research principles: Identity verification, significance and representation, quality and independence, and transparency.