140,000. That’s the number of hard drives that experience data loss every week in the United States. Businesses are increasingly facing innumerable threats, among them data loss. If not hard drives crashing and causing untold pain to companies, it is data breaches where hackers break past elaborate firewalls and IT support to access critical data and information. Here are four new threats businesses are currently facing.

1. Data Breaches

While data breaches are not new, even with the best IT support, the methods that hackers use are becoming more sophisticated, evolving almost every day. As a result, anti-virus and anti-malware companies are having to update their software on a regular basis to stay ahead of hackers.

A data breach is essentially a cyberattack seeking unauthorized access to confidential, sensitive, or protected data. Breaches can occur in major, small, or any size organization. Among common data breaches include theft of credit card information, driver’s license numbers, social security numbers, healthcare histories, personal information, and critical customer and company information.

2. Inflation

With COVID-19 still raging in some countries, and as the war continues in Ukraine, global inflation is rising at an alarming rate. According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), annualized global inflation rose from 7.5% in February 2022 to 9.2% in March 2022.

Considering that the inflation rate was just 3.7% in March 2021, this spike is, indeed, alarming for most businesses. Besides, with European geopolitics changing after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022, we expect to see even greater upheavals. Businesses will simply have to learn to adapt quickly.

3. Supply Chain Disruptions

First, it was COVID-19 that forced nations to go under lockdown, causing expensive disruptions in the supply chain. These were, however, understandable. Then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, causing further headaches, especially in Europe.

The result of these disruptions to businesses has been profound. Businesses that were thriving just a couple of years ago were negatively affected. Some have gone under while many others are struggling to stay afloat. With consumer spending severely affected, only those that can quickly adapt will survive, and perhaps even thrive.

4. COVID-19 Regulations

Two years down the road, COVID-19 is still raging. In China, lockdowns are the order of the day as the country pursues a zero COVID-19 policy, which translates into global supply chain disruptions. It doesn’t help that China is a major global supplier of all manner of products. Besides, COVID-19 is yet to disappear as new variants continue to mutate.

Besides data breaches that even the best IT support systems have been unable to prevent, businesses around the world are facing severe threats as nations grapple with COVID-19 restrictions, especially China’s zero COVID-19 policy, and upheavals in Europe brought by the ongoing invasion of Russia in Ukraine, which has disrupted global supply chains.