The average cost to businesses of data breaches today is a record $4.4 million. According to the latest IBM Security Report, that is a 13 percent increase from 2020. […]
The average cost of a data breach rose to an all-time high of $4.4 million in the past year. The latest annual report states: IBM Security Report. Compared to 2020, this is a significant increase of 13 percent.
The IBM Security Report is based on an analysis of 550 organizations worldwide that suffered data breaches between March 2021 and March 2022. The cost of a data breach consists not only of the immediately visible damage, such as paying a ransom, but also of long-term disadvantages for affected organizations.
These include lost sales or lawsuits from customers and partners whose data has been stolen, as well as upgrading your own security system. The organizations surveyed indicated that nearly half of the cost of a data breach would be incurred more than a year after the incident.
It will be very expensive in the healthcare sector
Many of the data breaches that incurred the highest costs involved critical infrastructure such as financial services or the energy sector. The average damage there was $4.8 million.
However, data breaches in critical infrastructures become most expensive when they occur in healthcare. With an average of $10.1 million, this registered the highest data theft costs.
Providers pass costs on to customers
Customers are also feeling the cost of data theft. More than half of companies surveyed admit to passing on the cost of data breaches to customers in the form of higher prices for their products and services.
Insecure credentials become a problem
According to the report, nearly a fifth of data breaches are due to compromised or stolen credentials. Phishing is also a popular way for criminals to infiltrate their targets, accounting for 16 percent. Ransomware attacks continued to pick up. Compared to 2021, their attack rate has increased from 7.8 to 11 percent.