--- title: Downtime Costs up to $50,000 per Hour for SMBs Struggling with Cybersecurity, New Research Shows description: Software failure and security issues are the most common causes of costly downtime for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and nearly a quarter of SMBs say they have gone offline in the past year. image: https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/hubfs/road%20in%20construction.jpg --- [![](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/hubfs/2021/09/logo-white.svg)](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/?hsLang=en-us) [![CONTACT AN EXPERT](https://hubspot-no-cache-eu1-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/default/341979/1d8885e9-1179-49b1-a5ec-9c75f5f670dd.png)](https://hubspot-cta-redirect-eu1-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/redirect/341979/1d8885e9-1179-49b1-a5ec-9c75f5f670dd) - [For Home](https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/) - [For Business](https://www.bitdefender.com/business/) - [Resources](https://www.bitdefender.com/business/resource-library.html) - [Webinars](https://www.bitdefender.com/business/webinars.html) # [BUSINESS INSIGHTS](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/?hsLang=en-us) By [**Filip Truta**](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/author/filip-truta) / May 20, 2020 # Downtime Costs up to $50,000 per Hour for SMBs Struggling with Cybersecurity, New Research Shows Share this [![Share on email](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/hubfs/2021/07/blog/email-color.png)](mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/downtime-costs-up-to-50000-per-hour-for-smbs-struggling-with-cybersecurity-new-research-shows&utm_medium=social&utm_source=email%20&body=Check%20out%20https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/downtime-costs-up-to-50000-per-hour-for-smbs-struggling-with-cybersecurity-new-research-shows&utm_medium=social&utm_source=email) [![Share on twitter](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/hubfs/2021/07/blog/twitter-color.png)](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?original_referer=https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/downtime-costs-up-to-50000-per-hour-for-smbs-struggling-with-cybersecurity-new-research-shows&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&url=https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/downtime-costs-up-to-50000-per-hour-for-smbs-struggling-with-cybersecurity-new-research-shows&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&source=tweetbutton&text=) [![Share on linkedin](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/hubfs/2021/07/blog/linkedin-color.png)](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/downtime-costs-up-to-50000-per-hour-for-smbs-struggling-with-cybersecurity-new-research-shows&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin) [![Share on facebook](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/hubfs/2021/07/blog/facebook-color.png)](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/downtime-costs-up-to-50000-per-hour-for-smbs-struggling-with-cybersecurity-new-research-shows&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook) Software failure and security issues are the most common causes of costly downtime for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and nearly a quarter of SMBs say they have gone offline in the past year. Today, some 52% of SMBs blame downtime losses mainly on cybersecurity matters, illustrating the major challenge these incidents present for business owners. According to new research, 37% of SMBs have lost customers and 17% have lost revenue due to downtime. A recent Infrascale [survey](https://www.prweb.com/releases/infrascale_survey_highlights_the_heavy_costs_of_business_downtime/prweb17115702.htm) of 500 C-suite respondents revealed that attracting a new customer can cost up to five times more than keeping an old one. 19% of SMBs admit they might not be fully prepared to address or prevent unexpected downtime. Of those, 13% blame it on limited time to research solutions to prevent such occurrences, and 28% were even more granular in their reasoning, further attributing the problem to overloads on their IT teams. Software failure (53%) and cybersecurity issues (52%) are the most common causes of the downtime creating these business challenges, according to the study. Downtime on hardware failure came in third, at 38%, followed by human error (36%), natural disaster (30%), and/or hardware theft (24%) – no small margins, by any measure. A tenth of SMBs said their downtime cost more than $50,000 per hour, and 13% said it cost between $40,000 and $50,000 per hour. A quarter put the per-hour cost of downtime for their business at between $20,000 and $40,000. Software failure and human error, such as IT misconfigurations and negligence, can be cybersecurity issues, and both are often at the root of data breaches. Failure to establish a robust cybersecurity posture, then, emerges as a leading driver of downtime losses. ### Explore More Topics - [Enterprise Security (743)](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/topic/enterprise-security) - [Threat Research (201)](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/topic/threat-research) - [Cloud Security (174)](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/topic/cloud-security) - [SMB Security (170)](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/topic/smb-security) - [Ransomware (166)](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/topic/ransomware) - [Privacy and Data Protection (137)](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/topic/privacy-and-data-protection) - [Cybersecurity Awareness (134)](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/topic/cybersecurity-awareness) - [Endpoint Protection & Management (126)](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/topic/endpoint-protection-management) - [Endpoint Detection and Response (124)](https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/topic/endpoint-detection-and-response) - 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