Our business depends significantly on effective and efficient information management systems, and the reliability and security of our information technology infrastructure are essential to the operation, health and expansion of our business. For example, the information gathered and processed by our information management systems assists us in managing our supply chain, financial reporting, monitoring customer accounts, and protecting our proprietary and confidential business information, plans, trade secrets, and intellectual property, among other things. In addition, these systems may contain personal data or other confidential or otherwise protected information about our employees, our customers’ employees, or other business partners. We must continue to expand and update this infrastructure in response to our changing requirements as well as evolving security standards and risks.
In some cases, we may rely upon third-party providers of hosting, support and other services to meet our information technology requirements. Any failure to manage, expand and update our information technology infrastructure, including our ERP system and other applications, any failure in the extension implementation or operation of this infrastructure, or any failure by our hosting and support partners or other third-party service providers in the performance of their services could materially harm our business. In addition, we have partnered with third parties to support our information technology systems and to help design, build, test, implement and maintain our information management systems.
Like other companies, we are subject to ongoing attempts by malicious actors, including through hacking, malware, ransomware, denial-of-service attacks, social engineering, exploitation of internet-connected devices, and other attacks, to obtain unauthorized access to, acquire or misuse confidential information, or to disrupt service reliability and threaten the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our systems and information we process. Cyber threats have increased in recent years, in part due to increased remote work and frequent attacks, including in the form of phishing emails, malware attachments and malicious websites. Additionally, cybersecurity researchers have warned of increased risks of cyber-attacks, in connection with the Russia-Ukraine war. While we work to safeguard our internal network systems and validate the security of our third-party service providers to mitigate these potential risks, including through information security policies, employee awareness and training, there is no assurance that such actions have been or will be sufficient to prevent cyber-attacks or security breaches or incidents. We have been in the past, and may be in the future, subject to social engineering and other cybersecurity attacks, and these attacks may become more prevalent with substantial portion of our workforce being distributed geographically, particularly given the increased remote access to our networks and systems as a result. Further, our third-party service providers may have been and may be in the future subject to such attacks or otherwise may suffer security breaches or incidents. In addition, actions by our employees, service providers, partners, contractors, or others, whether malicious or in error, could affect the security of our systems and information. Further, a breach or compromise of our information technology infrastructure or that of our third-party service providers could result in the misappropriation of intellectual property, business plans, trade secrets or other information. Additionally, while our security systems are designed to maintain the physical security of our facilities and information systems, accidental or willful security breaches or incidents or other unauthorized access by third parties to our facilities or our information systems could lead to unauthorized access to, or misappropriation, disclosure, or other processing of proprietary, confidential and other information. Moreover, new laws and regulations, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), add to the complexity of our compliance obligations and increase our compliance costs. Although we have established internal controls and procedures intended to comply with such laws and regulations, any actual or alleged failure to fully comply could result in significant penalties and other liabilities, harm to our reputation and market position, business and financial condition.
Despite our implementation of security measures, our systems and those of our third-party service providers are vulnerable to damage from these or other types of attacks, errors or acts of omissions. In addition, our systems may be impacted by natural disasters, terrorism or other similar disruptions. Any system failure, disruption, accident or security breach or incident affecting us or our third-party service providers could result in disruptions to our operations and loss or unavailability of, or unauthorized access or damage to, inappropriate access to, or use, disclosure or other processing of confidential information and other information maintained or otherwise processed by us. Any actual or alleged disruption to, or security breach or incident affecting, our systems or those of our third-party partners could damage our reputation, lead to theft or misappropriation of our intellectual property and trade secrets, result in regulatory investigations, claims or litigation, affect our relationships with our customers, require us to bear significant remediation and other costs, and ultimately harm our business, financial condition and operating results. In addition, we may be required to incur significant costs to protect against or mitigate damage caused by disruptions or security breaches or incidents. Our costs incurred in efforts to prevent, detect, alleviate or otherwise address cyber or other security problems, bugs, viruses, worms, malicious software programs and security vulnerabilities could be significant and such efforts may not be successful. All of these costs, expenses, liability and other matters may not be covered adequately by insurance and may result in an increase in our costs for insurance or insurance not being available to us on economically feasible terms, or at all. Insurers may also deny us coverage as to any future claim. Any of these results could harm our financial condition, business and reputation.