Average cost of data breach is $6.65 million

Davey Winder
Tuesday, 03 February 2009 15:07

IT Industry - Market

That cost, as far as the US is concerned, was USD $202 per compromised customer record in 2008.

The figure is up by more than $64 per victim, or 40 percent if your prefer, since the first study in 2005.

It might not sound too bad, but study suggests the average total per-incident cost to business in 2008 was a staggering $6.65 million!

The study also revealed that 84 percent of the cases examined in 2008 involved organisations suffering more than one data breach, which ironically means they are getting better experienced at dealing with them.

Shame they are not getting better experienced at preventing them, of course. Talking of which, 88 percent of all cases involved what the study calls 'insider negligence.'

"After four years of conducting this study, one thing remains constant, U.S. businesses continue to pay dearly for having a data breach,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of The Ponemon Institute. "As costs only continue to rise, companies must remain on guard or face losing valuable customers in this unpredictable economy."

I've said it before and will say it again: I heartily recommend stuffing a free copy of this report under the pillow of every CEO, CTO and CFO in order to get them to wake up and smell the security coffee.