IBM & Ponemon Institute Study: data breach costs rising; organizations with BCM found and contained breaches more quickly
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- Published: Thursday, 16 June 2016 08:18
IBM Security has released the results of a global study analyzing the financial impact of data breaches. Sponsored by IBM and conducted by the Ponemon Institute, the study found that the average cost of a data breach for companies surveyed has grown to $4 million, representing a 29 percent increase since 2013.
Cybersecurity incidents continue to grow in both volume and sophistication, with 64 percent more security incidents reported in 2015 than in 2014. As these threats become more complex, the cost to companies continues to rise. In fact, the study found that companies lose $158 per compromised record. Breaches in highly regulated industries were even more costly, with healthcare reaching $355 per record: a full $100 more than in 2013.
According to the study, leveraging an incident response team was the single biggest factor associated with reducing the cost of a data breach: saving companies nearly $400,000 on average (or $16 per record). In fact, response activities like incident forensics, communications, legal expenditures and regulatory mandates account for 59 percent of the cost of a data breach. Part of these high costs may be linked to the fact that 70 percent of US security executives report they don't have incident response plans in place.
The study also found the longer it takes to detect and contain a data breach, the more costly it becomes to resolve. While breaches that were identified in less than 100 days cost companies an average of $3.23 million, breaches that were found after the 100 day mark cost over $1 million more on average ($4.38 million).
The average time to identify a breach in the study was estimated at 201 days, and the average time to contain a breach was estimated at 70 days.
The study found that companies that had predefined business continuity management processes in place found and contained breaches more quickly, discovering breaches 52 days earlier and containing them 36 days faster than companies without BCM.
For more details on the study, the full report is available here. Country-specific reports are also available for the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, France, Brazil, Japan, Italy, India, the Arabian region (United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia), Canada and South Africa.
