Abstract

The organizations incur excessive losses due to cyber-attacks, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. Such attacks lead to customer churn, reduced productivity, loss of trust and reputation, and diminished profits. The more the number and severity of vulnerabilities are, the higher the threat exposure of an organization is. The increased online operations expose organizations more to cyber-attacks. Hence there is a need to study cyber-risk management to combat cyber-attacks perpetuated by exploiting vulnerabilities. Our study is based on the Protection-Motivation Theory to assess, quantify, and mitigate the cyber risk perpetuated by the weaknesses in the digital system of an organization. We perform co-occurrence network analytics to assess the cyber-risk associated with the presence of vulnerable information technology (IT) systems. We quantify the losses incurred by the cyber-attacks on a firm. Lastly, we suggest cyber-risk mitigation strategies via-a-vis vulnerability progression inside the organization to safeguard it against cyber-attacks.

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