Data Breaches At-A-Glance

• More than 216 million records have been compromised since early 2005.
• The total average cost of a data breach (not including fines) grew to $197 per compromised record, an increase of 8% since 2006 and 43% compared to 2005.

Post-breach Activity Costs

• The average total cost per reporting company was more than $6.3 million per breach and ranged form $225,000 to almost $35 million.
• In 2007, there was a 43% rise in data breach related costs compared to 2005 as affected companies scrambled to notify customers, bring in investigators , invest in new security technology and respond to lawsuits.
• After suffering a data breach, study participants said their companies expanded the use of encryption, invested in new data loss prevention and identity and access management products; and deployed new technology for endpoint security and perimeter control, and event management.

Data Breaches and Loss of Customers

• The cost of lost business continued to increase at more than 30% averaging $4.1 million or $128 per compromised record. Lost business now accounts for 65% of data breach costs compared to 54% in the 2006 study.
• Breaches by third-party organizations such as outsourcers, contractors, consultants, and business partners where reported by 40% of respondents up from 29% in 2006 and 21% in 2005.
• Breaches by third parties where also more costly than breaches by the enterprise itself, averaging $231 compared to $171 per record.