Risks Related to Information Technology and our Computer Systems
Cyberattacks and security vulnerabilities could lead to reduced future revenues, increased costs, liability claims, or harm to our competitive position.
The security of our products and services is important in our customers’ decisions to purchase or use our products or services. Increased sophistication and activities of perpetrators of cyberattacks have resulted in an increase in information security risks in recent years. Hackers develop and deploy viruses, worms, and other malicious software programs that attack products and services and gain access to networks and data centers. If we were to experience difficulties maintaining existing systems or implementing new systems, we could incur significant losses due to disruptions in our operations. Additionally, these systems contain valuable proprietary and confidential information and may contain personal data of our customers’ subscribers. A security breach could result in disruptions of our internal systems and business applications, impairment of our ability to provide services to our customers, product development delays, harm to our competitive position from the compromise of confidential business information, or subject us to liability under laws that protect personal data. Although we believe that we have robust information security procedures and other safeguards in place, many of our services do not have fully redundant systems or a formal business continuity or disaster recovery plan, and we may not have adequate business interruption insurance to compensate us for losses that occur from a system outage. As cyber threats continue to evolve, we may be required to expend additional resources to continue to enhance our information security measures and/or to investigate and remediate any information security vulnerabilities. Any of these consequences would adversely affect our revenue and margins.
System security risks, data protection breaches, cyberattacks and systems integration issues could disrupt our internal operations or IT services provided to customers, and any such disruption could reduce our revenue, increase our expenses, damage our reputation and adversely affect our stock price.
As a technology services business, we are exposed to attacks from criminals, nation state actors and activist hackers (collectively, “malicious parties”) who may be able to circumvent or bypass our cyber security measures and misappropriate, maliciously alter or destroy our confidential information or that of third parties, create system disruptions or cause shutdowns. Malicious parties also may be able to develop and deploy viruses, worms, ransomware and other malicious software programs that attack our products or otherwise exploit any security vulnerabilities of our products. Threats to our own IT infrastructure can also affect our customers. Customers using our cloud-based services rely on the security of our infrastructure, including hardware and other elements provided by third parties, to ensure the reliability of our services and the protection of their data. Sophisticated hardware and operating system software and applications that we procure from third parties may contain defects in design or manufacture, including flaws that could unexpectedly interfere with the operation of the system. The costs to us to eliminate or alleviate cyber or other security problems, including bugs, viruses, worms, malicious software programs and other security vulnerabilities, could be significant and could reduce our operating margins. Our efforts to address these problems may not be successful and could result in interruptions, delays, cessation of service and loss of existing or potential customers that may impede our sales, manufacturing, distribution or other critical functions.
Portions of our IT infrastructure also may experience interruptions, delays or cessations of service or produce errors in connection with systems integration or migration work that takes place from time to time. We may not be successful in implementing new systems and transitioning data, which could cause business disruptions and be more expensive, time-consuming, disruptive and resource intensive. Such disruptions could adversely impact our ability to fulfill orders and respond to customer requests and interrupt other processes. Delayed sales, lower margins or lost customers resulting from these disruptions could reduce our revenue, increase our expenses, damage our reputation and adversely affect our stock price.
Unauthorized disclosure of data, unauthorized access to our service and misuse of our service could adversely affect our business.
Any security breaches, unauthorized access, unauthorized usage, virus or similar breach or disruption could result in loss of confidential information, personal data and customer content, damage to our reputation, litigation, regulatory investigations, increased costs or other liabilities. If our security measures, or those of our partners or service providers, are breached as a result of third-party action, employee error, malfeasance or otherwise and, as a result, someone obtains unauthorized access to confidential information, personal data or customer content, our reputation will be damaged, our business may suffer or we could incur significant liability. If the measures we have put in place to limit or restrict access to and use of functionality, usage entitlements and support for customers or prospective customers are breached, circumvented or ineffective as a result of third-party action, employee error, malfeasance or otherwise and, as a result, someone obtains unauthorized access to and use of functionality, usage entitlements and support, our business may suffer or we could incur significant liability and/or costs.
Techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or use or to sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target. As a result, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative