Is latency killing online retailers? The hidden cost of cyber threats in the cloud era

As online retail becomes the dominant channel for consumer purchases, speed and responsiveness are no longer just competitive advantages, they’re survival essentials. Studies show that e-commerce sites loading in 1 second have a conversion rate 2.5 times higher than one loading in 5 seconds, and 5 times higher than a site loading in 10 seconds. In an environment where user experience defines brand loyalty and profitability, latency isn’t just a performance issue, it’s a business risk.

This session will explore how both cyber threats, such as DDoS attacks, and the cybersecurity controls designed to mitigate them can disrupt cloud-hosted services. While these controls are essential for protecting online platforms, they can unintentionally cause performance issues, including latency slowdowns or delays. These disruptions not only affect the availability and reliability of services but also impact the overall user experience, potentially driving customers away. We’ll dive into how the balance between security and performance is often delicate, and how businesses must carefully navigate this trade-off to ensure that security measures do not undermine their ability to convert visitors into paying customers.

Attendees will gain insights into how cloud-service providers can balance performance with protection, leverage edge computing, CDN optimisation, and behaviour-based threat detection to ensure secure, seamless shopping experiences. The session will then discuss how online retailers can financially manage this risk, exploring how this loss could be calculated and if a Cyber Liability policy is able to cover this loss of revenue.