While it might be a little early for Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, one theme from the story lingers all year long: Making the wrong decision could leave your house feeling a little crowded.

With ghosts, that is.

Here’s one wrong move you won’t want to make: Skipping Forward on June 4–5, 2024.

But let’s walk through the hypothetical. You exit out of the registration page, kick your feet up, and come June, you’re spending your days lost in work or lost in the waves. What’s the trouble?

Then, you’re visited by the first unwanted visitor.

The ghosts of data past

The ghosts of data past show you something sobering: 94% of organizations experienced a significant cyberattack last year, and what’s worse—you were one of them.

And the results were devastating, much like what a lot of organizations in that position experience. Last summer, one company hit by ransomware said that the attack contributed to a 4% drop in its first-quarter revenue, and a different company suffered a $100 million loss. 

Had you gone to Forward, you would’ve learned how to shield your business operations in the face of cyberattacks, so you could have kept running even after an attack. You also could’ve learned how to make your business operations unstoppable by discovering and protecting sensitive data.

Shoot. Just as you realize how much you missed, another ghost rears its spooky head.

The ghosts of data present

Your next visitor shows you the reality you’re currently facing. After the attack, you’re dealing with the aftershocks: The weeks-long recovery, the reputational damage, and the regulatory blowback.

It’s taking you a long time to recover. Longer than you thought. And one attack has put all business operations to a standstill. 

Had you gone to Forward, you would’ve seen how artificial intelligence (AI) is helping organizations automate cyber investigation and cyber recovery—and without training models. That means all that work currently weighing on you could’ve been taken care of already.

Oh, and you could’ve built up your data security skills (and learned new ones) with technical experts in a guided, hands-on lab environment. What you got from that could’ve made your 

recovery quick, simple, and safe. 

That stings. But you don’t even have time to ice that burn until the last ghost comes along.

The ghosts of data future

Your last ghost is the scariest one of all, and it’s here to show you the future of your organization.

And it comes in the form of a news headline: Sophisticated Cyberattack Claims Yet Another Company. You’ve joined the ranks of the 60% of organizations that have gone out of business within 6 months of being attacked, so at least you’re not alone. 

That’s a little comforting…right?

But had you gone to Forward, you would’ve been armed with an all-new approach to data security using the latest advancements in data protection, artificial intelligence, cloud technology, and ransomware defense. Hackers would have regretted messing with you, and they would’ve been the ones getting haunted.

You also could’ve learned how to bring your IT and security teams together, so you could’ve been even more resilient against any attack that came your way. 

Could’ve. Would’ve. Should’ve. 

It was only just a dream!

You’ve never been happier to wake up! All those ghosts were just a terrible nightmare.

That’s a relief. We don’t ever want you to deal with the regrets of that hypothetical. (And for the record, we don’t want you to have ghostly encounters either.)

Make sure you have a past you can be proud of, a present that’s unstoppable, and a future you can look forward to by registering for Forward right now.

We’ll see you there virtually on June 4–5. Until then, maybe it wouldn’t hurt for all of us to burn some sage.