IBM’s annual report titled Cost of a Data Breach claims that the average cost of a breach now stands at $4.2 million per incident, the highest ever. The report has been prepared by the Michigan-based Ponemon Institute for IBM Security.
Takeaways from the report
The data breach report analyzed over 500 organizations that experienced network intrusions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
- The average cost of a data breach surged by 10% in 2021 as compared to last year.
- The U.S. suffered the highest data breach cost at $9.05 million per incident, followed by the Middle East at $6.93 million and Canada at $5.4 million.
- Healthcare, financial services, and pharmaceuticals industries were the most affected, with an average cost of $9.23 million, $5.72 million, and $5.04 million per incident, respectively.
- It took an average of 287 days to detect and contain a data breach, seven days longer than the previous year.
- Companies employing advanced security solutions based on AI, machine learning, analytics, and encryption saved firms an average of between $1.25 million and $1.49 million.
Top threat
The most common attack vector included compromised credentials. Adversaries obtained login credentials mostly from data dumps on online platforms or via brute-force attacks. Once inside a network, they primarily targeted customers’ Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
Pandemic played a role
Mitigating threats were extremely difficult, owing to drastic operational shifts during the pandemic, say experts. Nearly 60% of organizations adopted cloud infrastructure to keep their businesses up and running, but standard security protocols were not in place.
Final thoughts
A record-high spike in the cost of a data breach is worrisome. Researchers, in the report, emphasized the adoption of modern security tools involving automated tools for threat detection. Implementing a zero-trust security model is another emerging approach that needs to be embraced by enterprises worldwide. Such strategies will reduce the cost of data breaches for victims in the future.
For the full report: Click here
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