The Cost of a Data Breach

The average data breach cost in 2023 is now up to $4.45million. According to a study by IBM, this represents a 2% increase from last year ($4.35 million), and these costs will only continue to increase. The impact of attacks has grown considerably this year due to these factors.

Remote Infrastructures Still Lag in Cybersecurity

Many companies have still not caught up to the substantial shift to remote work during the early pandemic. In 2020, COVID-19 forced companies to immediately shift to remote infrastructure before they were ready, resulting in data breaches that cost an average of $1 million more than before remote work. Unfortunately, the gap continues, and organizations with a remote working model paid almost $1million more than organizations where more than organizations where remote work was not a factor.

Breaches Are Time Consuming

Recovery time for data breaches often takes longer the less prepared an organization is for an incident, resulting in higher costs. In the past year, the time it takes to recover from a data breach has dramatically increased. In 82% of data breaches against organizations that housed their data across multiple environments, it took 15 days more than average to contain the breach.

Compromised Credentials

According to Verizion, 61% of breaches can be attributed to stolen credentials. Hackers routinely try the same login information used in one violation in subsequent breaches, since more than 82% of users reuse passwords across multiple systems, applications, and services.

How to Reduce the Cost of a Breach

The good news is that the same IBM study (mentioned above) found that 51% of companies impacted by breaches plan to increase cybersecurity measures. For most organizations, these investments concentrated on effectively controlling data breach costs. Of those increasing their investment, 50% plan to invest in incident response planning and testing, and 46% will invest in more employee training.

Organizations that implement zero trust methods and security automation strategies continue to have lower than average breach costs than those without. Incident response teams can significantly reduce breach costs by up to $360,000, and organizations that routinely test incident response plans can save an additional $320,000.

Take Control of Data Breach Costs with Securance Consulting

The right policies and technical measures can go a long way in controlling the costs of a data breach. Zero trust architecture, incident response planning, and security automation are all proven strategies for lowering the financial impact. Organizations that have permanently shifted to remote work are encouraged to modernize and mature their cybersecurity programs accordingly. No matter what your needs, Securance can improve your odds against data breaches. Contact us to learn more.