Why cybersecurity is everyone’s business – especially Finance

Imagine arriving at work on a Monday morning to discover that your organisation’s bank account has been compromised, supplier payments have been redirected, critical systems are inaccessible, and customers cannot transact.

The IT team is scrambling to restore operations. Finance is trying to establish how much money has disappeared. Legal is assessing potential regulatory exposure. Customer Care is fielding calls from increasingly concerned customers.

And somewhere in the chaos, one uncomfortable question emerges:

How much is this cyberattack actually going to cost us?

Welcome to the financial reality of cybercrime.

Cybersecurity is no longer simply about protecting computers, installing antivirus software or reminding employees not to click suspicious links. It is about protecting the financial health, operational continuity and long-term sustainability of an organisation.

For a domain name registry, where digital infrastructure, customer trust and uninterrupted services underpin the business, the stakes are particularly high.

1. The Million-Rand Click: When One Email Becomes a Financial Crisis

Not every cyberattack begins with a sophisticated hacker breaking through layers of technical security.

Sometimes, it begins with an ordinary email.

A finance employee receives what appears to be legitimate communication from a trusted supplier requesting an urgent change to banking details. The email looks authentic, the signature is familiar, and the request appears routine.

The payment is processed.

Days later, the real supplier follows up on an outstanding invoice.

The money? Gone.

This is one example of business email compromise, a form of cyber-enabled fraud that exploits trust, communication processes and weaknesses in financial controls.

For registry organisations, the potential exposure extends beyond supplier payments.

Cybercriminals may attempt to:

• Manipulate payroll records or employee banking details.
• Generate fraudulent invoices and payment instructions.
• Access accounting systems and alter customer credit facilities.
• Compromise registrar billing and transaction records.
• Gain unauthorised access to banking, SARS or CIPC profiles.
• Intercept confidential correspondence and sensitive financial information.

The lesson is simple: a password protects access, but effective financial controls protect the transaction.

Dual authorisation, independent verification of banking changes, restricted system permissions and employee awareness are therefore as important to cybersecurity as firewalls and encryption.

Before approving that urgent payment, ask yourself: Have I verified the instruction, or have I simply trusted the email?

2. When the Registry Goes Dark, the Financial Clock Starts Ticking

For most organisations, downtime is inconvenient.

For a domain name registry, downtime can have consequences across an entire digital ecosystem.

Consider the potential impact of a significant cyber incident affecting registry infrastructure.

Domain registrations, renewals and other transactions may be interrupted. Registrars may be unable to access critical services. Customers may experience delays, while operational teams work to restore systems and maintain continuity.

Meanwhile, the financial consequences begin accumulating.

There are immediate costs associated with technical recovery, forensic investigations, emergency resources and business interruption.

Then come the less visible consequences: delayed revenue, additional compliance expenditure, potential contractual exposure and the resources required to rebuild confidence.

Where applicable, failures may also create exposure under Registry Operator Agreements and relevant data protection legislation, including POPIA and the GDPR.

And unlike a compromised password, customer trust cannot simply be reset.

In the domain name industry, trust is fundamental. Registrars and registrants depend on the registry to maintain the integrity, availability and reliability of the services supporting their digital presence.

Every minute of disruption is therefore more than a technical concern. It represents potential financial, operational and reputational exposure.

3. Ransomware: The Invoice Nobody Wants to Receive

Imagine discovering that your organisation’s critical financial records have been encrypted and are inaccessible.

A message appears demanding payment in exchange for restoring access.

Worse still, the attackers claim to have copied confidential information and threaten to release it publicly.

This is the reality of ransomware and double-extortion attacks.

But the ransom demand is only one part of the financial equation.

An organisation may also face expenditure relating to system restoration, specialist forensic services, legal advice, regulatory processes, operational recovery and potential third-party claims.

Even where reliable backups exist, recovering systems takes time, resources and careful coordination.

For Finance, this creates an important shift in thinking.

Cybersecurity investment should not be measured solely against the cost of purchasing software or maintaining security infrastructure.

It should also be evaluated against the potential cost of an incident.

A properly funded backup strategy, tested recovery process, employee awareness programme or effective access-control system may help prevent a considerably more expensive financial crisis.

Cybersecurity is not simply money spent. It is financial exposure managed.

4. Your Finance Department Is Part of Your Cyber Defence

When people think about cybersecurity professionals, accountants rarely come to mind.

Yet Finance plays a critical role in protecting an organisation against cybercrime.

Financial systems contain some of the organisation’s most valuable and sensitive information, including banking details, employee records, customer accounts, supplier information and commercially confidential data.

This makes Finance both a potential target and an important line of defence.

Effective financial cybersecurity requires more than traditional accounting controls. It calls for an integrated approach combining financial governance, information security and employee accountability.

Some of the most important safeguards are surprisingly straightforward:

• Verify before you pay. Changes to supplier or beneficiary banking details should be independently confirmed using established contact information, not merely the details supplied in an email.
• Limit access. Employees should only have access to the financial systems and information necessary for their responsibilities.
• Separate responsibilities. Appropriate approval structures and dual authorisation reduce the risk of unauthorised transactions.
• Protect your credentials. Strong authentication, secure password management and appropriate device controls help protect sensitive systems.
• Prepare for disruption. Finance should participate in business continuity planning, incident response exercises and the assessment of potential financial losses.
• These measures are not exclusively the responsibility of Finance or IT. They require collaboration across the organisation.

After all, a cybercriminal only needs to identify one exploitable weakness. An organisation must build a culture in which everyone understands their responsibility to protect its assets.

5. The Real Return on Cybersecurity Investment

Cybersecurity expenditure is sometimes viewed as a necessary overhead: important, but competing with other operational priorities.

Perhaps it is time to change that perspective.

What is the financial value of preventing a fraudulent payment?

What is the value of maintaining uninterrupted registry operations?

What is the value of protecting confidential information, avoiding regulatory exposure and retaining customer confidence?

Not every benefit can be captured in a spreadsheet, but that does not make it any less important.

A risk-based cybersecurity investment strategy helps organisations direct resources towards their most critical assets and areas of greatest exposure.

It also encourages Finance and IT to work together to identify opportunities for more effective, integrated security solutions rather than maintaining fragmented and potentially costly controls.

An enterprise-wide Information Security Management System, aligned with ISO/IEC 27001, provides an important foundation for this approach.

However, policies alone are insufficient.

They must be understood, implemented, monitored and regularly reviewed.

Security awareness, appropriate personnel vetting, effective onboarding and exit procedures, access management and incident preparedness all contribute to protecting the organisation’s financial position.

The objective is not to eliminate every conceivable cyber risk. It is to strengthen resilience, reduce exposure and ensure that the organisation is prepared to respond when incidents occur.

6. The Most Expensive Cybersecurity Mistake? Thinking It Is Someone Else’s Problem.

Cybercriminals do not respect departmental boundaries.

They do not distinguish between Finance, Legal, IT, Human Resources, Customer Care or executive management.

They look for opportunities.

An unverified payment instruction. An unattended device. An unnecessary system permission. A compromised email account. A poorly protected password.

Any one of these could become the starting point of a much larger incident.

That is why cybersecurity must become part of everyday organisational decision-making rather than remaining an isolated technical function.

For domain name registries, protecting financial systems is ultimately about something bigger than safeguarding the balance sheet.

It is about preserving the confidence of registrars, registrants, partners and the wider digital community that depends on reliable registry services.

It is about protecting the integrity of the digital ecosystem and ensuring that the organisation remains financially and operationally sustainable.

This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Remember:

A cyberattack may begin with a click, but its consequences can reach every line of the balance sheet.

Think before you click. Verify before you pay. Protect before you lose.

Because in cybersecurity, protecting information also means protecting the future of the business.