$600 billion in losses: Splunk warns of downtime as a business crisis

Of Sandra Astrom

25 May 2026

Splunk's new downtime report shows that global enterprises lose approximately $600 billion each year due to operational disruptions, cyber incidents, and digital disruptions.

The costs of IT disruptions are rising rapidly. According to a new research report, the financial loss for the world's 2,000 largest companies has increased by 50 percent in the past two years – amounting to almost six trillion kronor.

The report The Hidden Costs of Downtime is produced by Cisco-company Splunk in collaboration with Oxford Economics. It estimates the incidence and cost of IT outages and is based on responses from decision-makers from the 2,000 largest companies in the world according to the Forbes Global 2000 index.

The report identifies several worrying trends and points out major challenges for businesses in managing disruptions – whether it is due to cyberattacks, the human factor or problems with underlying systems.

The costs of the outages are astronomical. On average, an IT outage costs close to SEK 150,000 per minute. In total, Global 2000 companies lose USD 600 billion annually – or close to SEK six trillion at today's exchange rate, according to the report's calculations. The costs include direct revenue losses for the companies, averaging USD 95 million per company, but also include damage to the brand, as well as costs for repair and restoration.

A major and high-profile outage has an average negative impact on the affected company's share price of 3.4 percent.

”"We see news almost daily about disruptions in Swedish companies and public services. In an increasingly digitalized society, the consequences are becoming more severe and the attention is greater. Long-term and recurring disruptions not only lead to lost revenue but above all to lost trust. It is a reality that all companies must deal with and where the report shows that the business community is becoming increasingly vulnerable,", says Anders Stinger, Nordic Head at Splunk.

Nearly half of companies, 47 percent, say that customers are often or very often the first to notice an ongoing outage, rather than their own organization, and 81 percent of companies have lost customers as a result of the problems. The costs of ransomware attacks are another large and rapidly growing economic burden, with much of the loss going directly into the pockets of cybercriminals. Ransom payments in 2025 were three times higher than in 2024.

The severe consequences risk leading to a culture of silence. 71 percent of companies feel that the costs of disclosing a data breach are very high or unreasonably high. The costs of fines for violations of laws and regulations amounted to an average of $51 million.

The shortage of qualified personnel to manage operational disruptions is glaring, and as a result, investment in AI-enhanced tools to manage and The median investment in AI-based tools for secure operations was $24.5 million among the 2,000 companies. Companies that were advanced in implementing such tools were less likely to suffer a data breach and were almost three times more likely to not have lost customers due to downtime.

Splunk is a leading data platform specializing in the collection, indexing, and analysis of machine-generated data in real time, helping organizations effectively monitor their digital infrastructure. The company was acquired by Cisco 2024.