The invisible cost of insecure innovation

Innovation is exhilarating. You’re building, scaling, experimenting, and imagining what doesn’t yet exist. But if you don’t secure your systems from the beginning, you’re creating a hidden risk that could make all that work worthless. 

Security should never be something you bolt on later. We know it’s easy to push it down the priorities list when you’re focused on building and growing. But data shows that insecure systems come with financial, cultural, and reputational costs that can undermine everything you’re trying to create. 

Breaches might feel abstract, but they’re expensive 

Every year, IBM and the Ponemon Institute track the global cost of data breaches. In the latest report, the average cost of a breach worldwide was USD $4.44 million. That’s a staggering figure – and it comes after a decade of steady increases. The complexity of digital transformation, cloud adoption, and AI deployments has been driving costs higher.

Of course, those numbers are averages. For small and medium businesses, PurpleSec reports that the cost to recover from a breach typically ranges between $120,000 and $1.24 million. For a startup working with limited runway, that can be existential – a single security incident can mean the difference between scaling successfully or shutting down.

According to a report from ITPro, 74% of companies admitted that insecure coding practices had led to at least one security breach in the past year. That should resonate with any innovator who’s pushed code under pressure. When speed is the top priority, vulnerabilities slip in – and there’s a whole world of adversaries out there who won’t hesitate to exploit them. 

Startups are under pressure 

Innovation is most fragile during scaling phases. You’ve built something that works, and now you’re racing to serve more users, expand your infrastructure, and impress investors. But scale multiplies risk.

A recent article in Dataconomy warned that startups face average breach costs of $3.56 million – with 72% of breaches involving data stored in misconfigured or unsecured environments. 

While that figure comes from secondary reporting on IBM’s data (and isn’t listed explicitly in IBM’s official report), it highlights a critical point: early-stage companies often rely on rapidly deployed cloud systems, and small mistakes in configuration can become very costly.

And the cultural cost is important too. When a startup suffers a breach, they lose the trust of their customers. Employees question leadership, and investors get nervous. In the fast-moving world of innovation, credibility can disappear overnight.

But large enterprises aren’t immune 

Major corporations suffer too. The IBM data breach report puts the average cost for enterprises well above $4 million, but in some cases breaches climb into tens or even hundreds of millions. More digital adoption brings more exposure.

A 2025 study on Canadian firms found that while adopting new digital tools boosted efficiency, it also increased cybersecurity risk, especially for larger businesses.

So innovation at scale is still vulnerable. Whether you’re a five-person startup or a multinational enterprise, insecure systems undermine progress.

Make security part of the innovation brief 

Don’t let this knowledge get you down. Instead, innovators should accept that risk is inherent in creating new things; and the key is to make security a design partner, instead of an afterthought. 

When we talk about the invisible cost of insecure innovation, we’re talking in part about the money you’ll spend on cleaning up after a breach. But we’re also talking about the opportunity cost of lost trust and derailed growth. 

You can’t scale a product that users don’t trust. You can’t grow a company if investors see your systems as a liability. And you can’t build a movement-changing technology if a preventable breach breaks your momentum.

So make security a priority from the beginning. And if you’re not sure where to start, then our colleagues at Black Hat MEA have got you covered – subscribe to their weekly newsletter to build your knowledge and secure your future.