Ripple Effects in 2025: What RiskRecon’s Latest Research Means for Your Cyber Supply Chain
Based on RiskRecon’s Ripples Across the Risk Surface 2025 research.
Copyright belongs to the original authors; insights below include CyVent’s commentary and interpretation.
Cyber incidents’ impact doesn’t stay contained at breach victims anymore - not in 2025.
According to RiskRecon’s newly released Ripples Across the Risk Surface 2025 report, more than 1,500 multi-party cybersecurity incidents over the last decade show a clear pattern: when one organization experiences a breach, the impact rarely stops there. It spreads outward - affecting suppliers, partners, and downstream customers in ways that trend toward higher costs and system-wide disruption.
We see this every day across SMB and mid-market environments. The companies that believe “the attack stops with us” are often the same companies blindsided by the ripple effects created somewhere else in their ecosystem.
This research confirms an unfortunate reality all leadership teams must now confront:
Your cybersecurity risk is no longer defined by your defenses alone. It’s defined by every connection you maintain.
Key Insights from the Research (with CyVent Commentary)
1. Ripple Events Are Less Frequent - but Massively More Expensive
RiskRecon’s analysis shows that ripple incidents are rare compared to single-party incidents, but when they happen, losses are 10x higher on average, with extreme losses reaching 14x the cost of regular incidents.
CyVent’s take:
The financial gap between a “contained” breach and a ripple event is widening. Organizations are now being impacted not only by their own failures, but by the security posture of vendors two or three layers deep. This validates the growing need for continuous third-party monitoring, not just annual questionnaires.
2. Downstream Losses Are Now Matching the Initial Victims’ Losses
Historically, the organization hit first (the generator) carried the majority of the cost.
That is no longer true.
Receivers, partners, suppliers, customers - now incur losses roughly equal to those of the primary victim.
CyVent’s take:
This shifts the responsibility from “we trust our tech stack” to “we trust our partners’ tech stacks.” Downstream organizations are now fully exposed even without being the target of the initial attack. Cyber resilience must include a strategy for validating and monitoring vendor hygiene in real time.
3. Larger Firms Face Disproportionate Ripple Risk
After adjusting for the actual number of firms in each revenue band, RiskRecon found:
Firms with $10B+ in revenue are ~2x more likely to generate or receive ripple events.
Mid-to-large firms generate heavy ripple flows among each other.
Ripple effects often cascade downward from mid-market organizations into smaller suppliers.
CyVent’s take:
This pattern reflects real-world supply chain architecture. Smaller organizations depend on enterprise vendors, SaaS tools, and MSPs, so when a major player experiences an incident, thousands feel the impact. This is why SMBs must adopt enterprise-grade visibility into their vendor ecosystem.
4. Certain Sectors Are Far More Exposed
The sectors most likely to receive ripple impacts include:
Finance
Healthcare
Education
The sectors most likely to generate ripple events include:
Finance
Public sector
Information/Technology
Utilities
CyVent’s take:
These sectors operate at the intersection of sensitive data, regulated environments, and distributed vendor dependencies, perfect conditions for ripple propagation. For playersin these industries, enhancing visibility into third-party and fourth-party relationships is no longer optional.
5. Nation-States, Hacktivists, and Criminal Groups Drive Ripple Events
Unlike single-party incidents, ripple events disproportionately involve:
Nation-state actors
Hacktivist groups
Criminal organizations
Large-scale fraud, DDoS, and system intrusions
CyVent’s take:
Ripple threats are driven by adversaries who aim for maximum systemic impact. This is why scalable automation, proactive detection, and continuous vendor monitoring, from tools like RiskRecon, have become foundational to modern security programs.
What This Means for Your Organization in 2026
RiskRecon’s research makes one thing clear:
You don’t have to be the initial target to suffer enterprise-level damage.
Your exposure now includes:
The SaaS platforms you rely on
The MSPs that manage your environment
Your cloud providers
Your outsourced security/IT partners
The vendors used by your vendors
Cyber resilience today means:
✔ Knowing the true risk posture of every critical third party
✔ Continuously monitoring for changes
✔ Modeling potential ripple impacts
✔ Building a defensible vendor risk program backed by real data
Organizations that adopt proactive, automated visibility will be better positioned to mitigate ripple events before they escalate.
CyVent’s Role: Helping You Prevent Becoming a Ripple Generator - or a Ripple Casualty
As cyber ecosystems become more interconnected, the strongest competitive advantage a business can have is clarity.
CyVent helps organizations:
Understand where their biggest third-party risks truly lie
Prioritize vendors based on objective cybersecurity data
Automate continuous monitoring with RiskRecon
Strengthen cyber posture to avoid causing ripples themselves
Reduce regulatory, operational, and reputational exposure
We don’t just deploy tools - we help leadership teams translate complex cyber risk into clear decisions.
Closing Thoughts
The 2025 Ripples Report shows that cyber risk is no longer confined within organizational boundaries. It spreads. It scales. And without visibility, it blindsides.
Understanding the ripple effect isn’t just about preventing the next breach.
It’s about safeguarding the trusted relationships your business depends on.
Want to assess the cybersecurity hygiene of your vendors?
Learn how CyVent helps companies strengthen their digital supply chains:
👉https://www.cyvent.com/prevent-your-company-from-third-party-risk-with-riskrecon
