Cybersecurity and data breaches
144 of 521 companies dropped a paragraph in Risk Factors that uses one of these words:
cybersecurity, cyber, ransomware, data breach, cyberattack, hackers.
The paragraph was in the earlier 10-K and nothing like it is in the latest.
It counts text; it does not say how serious a risk is. Words in capitals only (such as AI) must be in capitals.
By sector
Sector is the SEC's industry description of the company. Each count opens that sector's quotes below.
| Sector | Companies | Compared |
|---|---|---|
| Rubber & Plastics Footwear | 2 | 2 |
| Air Courier Services | 1 | 1 |
| Apparel & Other Finishd Prods of Fabrics & Similar Matl | 1 | 1 |
| Electrical Industrial Apparatus | 1 | 1 |
| Electronic Connectors | 1 | 1 |
| Food and Kindred Products | 1 | 1 |
| Gas & Other Services Combined | 1 | 1 |
| Household Appliances | 1 | 1 |
| In Vitro & In Vivo Diagnostic Substances | 1 | 1 |
| Leather & Leather Products | 1 | 1 |
| Meat Packing Plants | 1 | 1 |
| Miscellaneous Food Preparations & Kindred Products | 1 | 1 |
| Newspapers: Publishing or Publishing & Printing | 1 | 1 |
| Ordnance & Accessories, (No Vehicles/Guided Missiles) | 1 | 1 |
| Paper Mills | 1 | 1 |
| Retail-Drug Stores and Proprietary Stores | 1 | 1 |
| Retail-Eating & Drinking Places | 1 | 1 |
| Retail-Home Furniture, Furnishings & Equipment Stores | 1 | 1 |
| Retail-Radio, Tv & Consumer Electronics Stores | 1 | 1 |
| Services-Management Services | 1 | 1 |
| Services-Misc Health & Allied Services, NEC | 1 | 1 |
| Telephone & Telegraph Apparatus | 1 | 1 |
| Television Broadcasting Stations | 1 | 1 |
| Water Supply | 1 | 1 |
| Wholesale-Medical, Dental & Hospital Equipment & Supplies | 1 | 1 |
| Wholesale-Motor Vehicle Supplies & New Parts | 1 | 1 |
| Computer Storage Devices | 4 | 5 |
| Retail-Eating Places | 3 | 4 |
| Finance Services | 19 | 28 |
| Computer Communications Equipment | 2 | 3 |
| Surgical & Medical Instruments & Apparatus | 6 | 10 |
| Beverages | 3 | 5 |
| State Commercial Banks | 3 | 6 |
| Electronic & Other Electrical Equipment (No Computer Equip) | 2 | 4 |
| Search, Detection, Navigation, Guidance, Aeronautical Sys | 2 | 4 |
| Security & Commodity Brokers, Dealers, Exchanges & Services | 2 | 4 |
| Accident & Health Insurance | 1 | 2 |
| Aircraft Engines & Engine Parts | 1 | 2 |
| Cigarettes | 1 | 2 |
| Computer Peripheral Equipment, NEC | 1 | 2 |
| Cutlery, Handtools & General Hardware | 1 | 2 |
| Fats & Oils | 1 | 2 |
| Industrial Organic Chemicals | 1 | 2 |
| Mining & Quarrying of Nonmetallic Minerals (No Fuels) | 1 | 2 |
| Oil & Gas Field Services, NEC | 1 | 2 |
| Refuse Systems | 1 | 2 |
| Retail-Family Clothing Stores | 1 | 2 |
| Retail-Lumber & Other Building Materials Dealers | 1 | 2 |
| Services-Medical Laboratories | 1 | 2 |
| Wholesale-Groceries & Related Products | 1 | 2 |
| National Commercial Banks | 5 | 11 |
| Services-Prepackaged Software | 8 | 19 |
| Biological Products, (No Diagnostic Substances) | 2 | 5 |
| Laboratory Analytical Instruments | 2 | 5 |
| Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. | 2 | 5 |
| Investment Advice | 3 | 8 |
| Air-Cond & Warm Air Heatg Equip & Comm & Indl Refrig Equip | 1 | 3 |
| Computer & office Equipment | 1 | 3 |
| Electrical Work | 1 | 3 |
| Measuring & Controlling Devices, NEC | 1 | 3 |
| Services-Consumer Credit Reporting, Collection Agencies | 1 | 3 |
| Crude Petroleum & Natural Gas | 2 | 7 |
| Electric Services | 4 | 15 |
| Services-Business Services, NEC | 4 | 16 |
| Fire, Marine & Casualty Insurance | 3 | 12 |
| Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation | 1 | 4 |
| Real Estate Investment Trusts | 6 | 27 |
| Semiconductors & Related Devices | 3 | 15 |
| Industrial Instruments For Measurement, Display, and Control | 1 | 5 |
| Orthopedic, Prosthetic & Surgical Appliances & Supplies | 1 | 5 |
| Electric & Other Services Combined | 2 | 12 |
| Petroleum Refining | 1 | 6 |
| Security Brokers, Dealers & Flotation Companies | 1 | 7 |
| Pharmaceutical Preparations | 1 | 11 |
378 paragraphs · Computer Communications Equipment show all sectors
•breaches of our cybersecurity systems or other security breaches could degrade our ability to conduct our business operations and deliver products and services to our customers, cause vulnerabilities in our products and services or subject us to regulatory enforcement actions and or fines or liabilities for damages incurred by our customers or partners.
Read in the 10-K filed Feb 19, 2025 ↗
•increases in cybersecurity threats, including security threats from state sponsors; and
Read in the 10-K filed Feb 19, 2025 ↗
Breaches of our cybersecurity systems, or other security or privacy breaches or incidents with respect to our products, services, networks, systems, or data, could degrade our ability to conduct our business operations and deliver products and services to our customers, cause vulnerabilities in our products and services, and subject us to regulatory enforcement actions and or fines or liabilities for damages incurred by our customers or partners, delay our ability to recognize revenue, compromise the integrity of our software products and our networks, systems, and data, result in significant data losses and the theft of our intellectual property, damage our reputation, expose us to liability to third parties and require us to incur significant additional costs to maintain the security of our networks and data.
Read in the 10-K filed Feb 19, 2025 ↗
We increasingly depend upon our IT systems to conduct virtually all of our business operations, ranging from our internal operations and product development activities to our marketing and sales efforts and communications with our customers and business partners. Computer programmers or other persons or organizations may attempt to penetrate our network security, or that of our website or systems, and access, use, or obtain confidential, personal, or otherwise sensitive or proprietary information about us or our customers, or via these or other methods, including denial of service attacks and other cyberattacks, disrupt or cause interruptions of our systems, products, services and networks. In addition, geopolitical tensions and conflicts, such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Israel-Hamas hostilities and deteriorating relations with China, may create a greater risk of cyberattacks against our company and our manufacturers, suppliers, logistics providers, banks and other business partners. Because the techniques used to access, disrupt, or sabotage networks and systems change frequently and may not be recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques. In addition, our software and sophisticated hardware and operating system software and applications that we develop or procure from third parties may contain vulnerabilities or defects in design or manufacture, including “bugs,” viruses, ransomware and other malware, and other problems that could cause the software or applications to fail or otherwise to unexpectedly interfere with the operation of the system or that could result in a breach of or disruption to our systems, products, services or networks or the systems, networks, products, or services of third parties that support us and our services. We also face risks of others gaining unauthorized access to our products and services and introducing malicious software, and such malicious software, defects, bugs or vulnerabilities, or other defects, bugs, or vulnerabilities in our products or services may result in failures or interruptions of our products or services or expose our end-customers' networks, leaving their networks unprotected against the latest security threats.
Read in the 10-K filed Feb 19, 2025 ↗
We have also outsourced some business functions to third parties, including our manufacturers, logistics providers, and cloud service providers, and our business operations also depend, in part, on the success of these third parties’ own cybersecurity measures. Similarly, we rely upon distributors, resellers and system integrators to sell our products and our sales
Read in the 10-K filed Feb 19, 2025 ↗
operations depend, in part, on the reliability of their cybersecurity measures. Additionally, we depend upon our employees to appropriately handle confidential, sensitive, and proprietary data and comply with the security measures we have instituted to prevent exposure of our networks and systems to security breaches and incidents, the unauthorized access to our products and the loss of data. We and the aforementioned third parties also face the risk of ransomware and other malicious software, phishing schemes and other social engineering methods, fraud and other malfeasance, cybersecurity threats from state sponsors and other actors, and intentional or negligent acts or omissions of employees and contractors. Furthermore, our acquisition of Awake Security and our provision of its NDR platform may result in us being a more attractive target for such attacks. Accordingly, if our cybersecurity systems and measures or those of any of the aforementioned third parties fail to protect against sophisticated cyber-attacks, other means of effectuating security breaches or incidents, interruptions or other disruptions of our or our third-party service providers’ systems, networks, products, or services, the mishandling of data by employees and contractors, the corruption, loss, or mishandling or other unauthorized processing of data by unauthorized persons, or any other means of unauthorized access to, or use of, our manufacturing process, products, services, networks, systems, or data that we or such third parties maintain, operate, or process, our ability to conduct our business effectively could be damaged in a number of ways, including:
Read in the 10-K filed Feb 19, 2025 ↗
We experience cyber attacks and other attempts to gain unauthorized access on a regular basis to (i) our products and services (together, our “solutions”) and (ii) the servers, data centers, networks, systems, and cloud-based services operated or enabled by us, or by third parties upon which we rely, on or through which our and third-party data are stored, processed, or can be
Read in the 10-K filed Sep 3, 2025 ↗
Global privacy and data protection-related laws and regulations, including cybersecurity laws, are evolving, extensive, and complex. Compliance with these laws and regulations is difficult and costly. In addition, evolving legal requirements restricting
Read in the 10-K filed Sep 3, 2025 ↗