By: Marc Schwartz, President of Ozone IT Services.
Every ransomware headline focuses on ransom demands, but those figures tell only part of the story. For most organizations, the real financial blow comes from downtime: halted production, idle workforces, lost orders, disrupted supply chains, and eroded customer trust. In sectors like manufacturing—where operations are continuous and margins tight—downtime can mean millions in lost revenue for every day systems are out of service. Executives must treat continuous operations as a strategic business imperative, and a solid cybersecurity foundation is key to achieving this objective.
Downtime Costs Outstrip Ransom Payments
In the manufacturing sector, downtime measured in days can quickly translate into massive financial losses. Research shows that manufacturing companies lose an average of $1.9 million per day of downtime due to ransomware with total estimated losses topping $17 billion since 2018. (Comparitech)
Manufacturers don’t just lose revenue during outages; they lose productivity, delay shipments, and compromise delivery commitments. These interruptions can ripple through supply chains, amplifying economic impact across partners and customers.
Downtime Disrupts Operations, Productivity, and Profitability
Downtime isn’t just a number on a spreadsheet. It affects every layer of business operations:
- Production Halts: Machines stop, assembly lines pause, raw materials sit idle—every minute counts
- Lost Orders: Delays immediately impact customer contracts and reorder commitments
- Employee Idle Time: Workers are paid without producing output, compounding inefficiency
- Expedited Recovery Costs: Emergency IT support, consultants, and overtime add unplanned expenses
- Missed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Reputation Damage: Broken commitments harm long-term customer loyalty
Downtime doesn’t just cost lost productivity and IT expenses; it erodes profit margins and dampens competitiveness.
Ransomware Isn’t Just an IT Problem. It’s a Business Risk.
Manufacturers are among the most targeted sectors. Between April 2024 and March 2025, the industry accounted for 22% of all publicly disclosed ransomware attacks, and attacks surged 46% in the first quarter of 2025 alone. (Black Kite, Honeywell)
Cybercriminals know this. They target sectors where any operational interruption—even for a few hours—has outsized financial and customer impact. That’s why ransomware continues to be a top threat in manufacturing.
Industry reporting also highlights that serious operational disruptions occur in roughly half of ransomware cases in manufacturing, underscoring how attacks translate into broken plants, missed production, and stalled fulfillment.
The Ripple Effect: Downtime Beyond the Factory Floor
Downtime doesn’t just affect the factory:
- Finance Teams: Reconstructing records, reconciling ledgers, and managing audits all slow cash flow
- Customer Service: Delayed orders trigger complaints, discounts, and lost future business
- Sales & Marketing: Brand reputation weakens as reliability questions arise
- Supply Chain Partners: Upstream and downstream partners absorb secondary impacts
In some cases, prolonged outages have even forced restructurings or closures of operations when losses outpace cash reserves.
Why Traditional Backups Are Not Enough
Legacy backup strategies — nightly snapshots or tape vaulting — only capture a fraction of data and are often too slow to help in a crisis. When ransomware hits, the clock doesn’t wait for “end-of-day” backups to complete. The longer systems are unavailable, the more revenue evaporates.
Modern attacks encrypt or destroy data before locking systems, making immovable, frequent, verified backups essential to recovery. Without them, organizations face longer downtimes and higher costs, regardless of whether a ransom is paid.
A Strategic Response: Resilience as a Business Imperative
Executives need to reframe ransomware downtime from a technical issue to a core business risk. The question boards should be asking isn’t “Do we have backups?” but “How quickly can our business resume full operations if systems fail?”
Downtime metrics need to be reported alongside financial KPIs like revenue, cost of goods sold, and cash flow because in ransomware scenarios, they are directly correlated.
How Ozone IT Services Protects Companies from the True Cost of Ransomware
At Ozone IT Services, we help organizations minimize operational downtime from cyberattacks by building defenses that go beyond technology checkboxes:
- High-frequency, immutable backups that protect data at the speed business generates it
- Automated patching and vulnerability management to reduce attack surfaces
- Hybrid backup and disaster recovery frameworks designed for rapid restore
- Verified recovery testing so restorations are proven and reliable
- Metrics tied to RTOs (Recovery Time Objectives) and business continuity goals
With these measures, companies reduce technical risk, while safeguarding revenue, productivity, and customer commitment.
Ransomware downtime has a real price. Treating it as an operational risk protects shareholder value, stabilizes operations, and differentiates leaders from laggards.
If you want to understand the true cost of downtime for your business and how to protect against it, reach out to Ozone IT Services for a Resilience Assessment tailored to your industry realities.
Marc Schwartz is the President of Ozone IT Services and brings over 30 years of experience designing and securing IT infrastructure, with deep specialization in Backup as a Service (BaaS), Patching as a Service (PaaS), and cybersecurity for manufacturing environments. Known for his ability to eliminate the chaos of ransomware and cyber disruptions, Marc helps manufacturers stay secure, operational, and profitable by solving problems before they happen and building systems that keep businesses running when it matters most.
Securing What's Next
Let’s talk about how PaaS can strengthen your security posture and keep you audit-ready—every day of the year. Contact Us
