The Average Cost of a Data Breach

IBM Security and Ponemon Institute have released their study on the average cost of a data breach.

• By Sydny Shepard
• Jul 17, 2018

Turns out the cost of data breaches and the volume of records stolen are only going up according to the 13th annual 2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study: Global Overview from IBM Security and Ponemon Institute.

The study reported that the global average cost of a data breach is $3.86 million, up 6.4 percent from last year. The average cost, globally, for each lost of stolen record containing sensitive and confidential information is also up from last year, landing at $148 per record. A 4.8 percent increase from 2017.

The study found that breaches are only getting bigger with the average size of breaches, based on companies surveyed, increased by 2.2 percent year after year.

When broken down by country, the US is leading in the most data breaches, equaling out to $7.91 million. Next is Canada with $4.74 million average cost for data breaches and Germany with $4.67 million. The countries with the smallest average cost was Brazil ($1.24 million) and India ($1.77 million.)

Also included in the study was the amount of time it took for the companies to identify a data breach in their systems. The mean time companies took to identify their breaches was 197 days and 69 days respectively. The study noted that companies that contained their breach within 30 days ended up saving over $1 million vs. those that took over 30 days to resolve the situation.

This is where cybersecurity solution providers come in. The average cost to deploy security automation is $2.88 million, according to the study. Without cybersecurity solutions, a company could risk up to $4.43 million in breach costs.