An online retail company operates through a website where thousands of customers place orders daily. One day, hackers carried out a cyber-attack and…
CA Final · Advanced Auditing, Assurance and Professional Ethics · MTP · May 2026
An online retail company operates through a website where thousands of customers place orders daily. One day, hackers carried out a cyber-attack and installed ransomware that encrypted the company's database and critical systems. As a result, employees were unable to access operational data, customers could not place orders, and the website became unavailable. The attackers demanded a large ransom payment in exchange for restoring access. Further, there was a possibility that customers' personal data had been compromised. The company also incurred costs for investigation and system restoration and faced a decline in customer trust along with potential scrutiny from regulatory authorities. Identify and explain the indicative areas where the organisation may face the impact of cyber risk in the above situation.
Suggested Answer and Working Notes:
Impact of cyber risk: Cyber-attack can impact one, two or more types of risks. The impact of the attack would vary from organization to organization and most importantly from attack to attack. Some of the indicative areas can be: Regulatory costs.Business interruptions causing an operational challenge for an organization.Data loss, reputational loss and litigation.Ransomware – more common these days where entire systems are encrypted.Intellectual property theft which may not only take the competitive advantage, but we may also result in any impairment/impediment charge because of the loss of IP.Incident response cost which could be for investigations & remediations.Breach of Privacy, if personal data of a consumer is hacked it could have a significant impact on the organization.Fines and penalties.
Topics: Digital Auditing & Assurance
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