A sword to the chest is more dramatic than a thousand paper cuts, but both can hurt.
The paper cuts are dangerous because nobody takes them seriously until they're collectively causing big damage. We’ve seen many tales of companies (especially larger ones) sitting on contracts that were sapping them of cash.
Zombie contracts with agencies on retainer. Unreasonable price increases baked into supplier contracts. Not exercising the right to rebates from partnership agreements and breached SLAs.
Cold hard cash lost, nothing gained.
This mostly happens because people sign contracts and leave the business. You don't know what contracts they left behind and what knowledge they took with them.
The only defence is a contract database.