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Adam Stahl

By: Adam Stahl on July 07, 2015

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Important Data Breach Statistics You Need to Know

Cybersecurity

Data breaches are serious business that are increasing in frequency year after year. Every month there’s a new large-scale data breach of a major corporation, showing us that they affect companies of all sizes.

The best defense begins with proper education on the dangers and costs - because a little knowledge could just be the catalyst for change that you’ve needed.

If you haven’t yet read our Ten Immutable Laws of Security, we encourage you to do so. It may just save you from some of the cost figures reported below.

To help you understand the importance of protection against data breaches, here are a few statistics:

1.   They Cost You…A Lot

Data breaches that include a loss of data or theft of data have a serious price tag attached to them. And this cost is going up. In recent years there’s been an $18 cost increase per incident. The cost of a single compromised record from a malicious attack now sits at an average of $246, and employee- and system-glitch-related data loss records costing about $160. Healthcare companies have more significant costs associated to data breaches, with the average lost record costing $233 (pharmaceutical companies sit at $207).

Overall, a successful cyber attack costs a company an average of $300,000.

2.   Attack Response Matters

Executing on a data breach due to cybercrime makes a significant difference. Teams that can help ensure business continuity can save you an average of $13 per record. Companies that have a strong response via an incident response plan can save an average of $21 per record.

3.   Notifications Can Cost You

Companies that notified clients too early after an attack and failed to complete a thorough data loss assessment or forensic examination add an average of $15 to the cost per record.

4.   Who You Partner With Matters

Vendors and other third-party alliances can, unfortunately, cause data breaches. A partner-based data breach can increase your cost by $25 per record.

5.   Malicious Attacks Are Common

The most common type of data loss from data breaches are due to cybercrime. Of companies surveyed, 44% claimed a malicious cybercrime attack as their primary cause of data loss, and just over 30% claimed it being due to employee negligence.

6.   It’s Growing

Last year in 2014, the cost of business opportunity lost due to data breaches grew from $3.03M to $3.2M in a single year. While data recovery is still a significant cost, the greatest loss for companies that experience data breaches is lost customer revenue after a breach.

When you add to the cost increase per record lost to the fact that the average mid-to-large-sized company is attacked an average of 2 million times per week, this signifies an increasing need for an in-depth security plan.

7.   We’re #1!

In the world of data breaches, the United States leads the way! We account for 50% of the planet’s data breaches. Help make cybersecurity a national imperative.

8.   Passwords Are Still A Priority

Stolen or hacked login credentials are still your biggest network security threat, and represent 76% of all data network intrusions. Read our 4 Ways to Strengthen Your Passwords blog for ways to bolster your login credentials.

Data security is a difficult world to navigate, with challenges arising at every size level of company. To help you improve your company's overall security we’ve created a cybersecurity quiz. This quiz can help you find weak points in your network security, and provide you with a baseline for improvement.

Cybersecurity Quiz

About Adam Stahl

Adam is Kelser's Digital Strategist who invites boundless creativity to achieve outcomes that inspire confidence.

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