In addition to the immediate cost of a data breach, nearly half of the total costs occur more than a year after the incident occurs, says IBM Security.
A successful data breach will cost the affected organization not only time, resources, and reputation, but also cash. In addition to the costs of detecting, mitigating, and cleaning up after a breach, there are long-term costs that can affect an organization for months or even years. A report released Wednesday by IBM Security looked at the impact of a data breach on a company’s bottom line.
To create “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022”, IBM Security commissioned the Ponemon Institute to analyze 550 organizations affected by the data breach from March 2021 to March 2022. With more than 3,600 interviews conducted with individuals within the organizations. affected organizations, the goal is to determine the immediate and long-term costs of the breach.
Of the organizations analyzed for the study, 85% were victims of more than one data breach during the 12-month period included in the study. The average cost of a data breach hit an all-time high of $4.35 million this year, up 2.6% from 2021 and 12.7% from 2020. In the United States, the average cost is $9.44 million , the highest of any country.
The cost of a data breach can also be extended. Nearly 50% of the costs analyzed by IBM Security occurred more than a year after the actual breach. Furthermore, around 60% of breached organizations are forced to pass on costs by raising prices for their customers.
Looking at how and why breaches occurred, 45% of them were cloud-based, 19% of them were caused by a compromised business partner, another 19% were the result of public information. logins are stolen or compromised, and 16% are triggered by phishing attacks.
What business leaders can do to avoid data breaches
To help organizations protect themselves from data breaches, IBM Security offers the following tips:
Deploy zero-trust security
In remote and hybrid working and multi-cloud environments, distrust can help protect sensitive data and other assets by restricting access. To that end, employees will want to use security tools that can share information between different systems and centralize your security operations.
Protect data in the cloud using specific encryption and policies
To protect an organization’s cloud-hosted databases, use data classification scheme and retention programs to make it easier for IT departments to view and reduce the amount of sensitive data vulnerable to breaches. Use both data encryption and homomorphic encoding to protect sensitive files. Furthermore, using an internal framework for assessment can help users assess security risks, better meet compliance standards, and improve the company’s ability to detect and prevent data breaches. company.
Switch to automated security tools
To improve the security of a business, consider the following tools:
- Security orchestration, automation, and response (FLY UP)
- Security information and event management (SIEM) software
- Extensive detection and response (XDR)
All three can help IT departments respond faster to security incidents through automation and integration with existing security products. XDR can also lead to lower data breach costs.
Use tools to protect endpoints and remote workers
Data breaches in which remote work is a more costly factor to mitigate than those in which it plays no role. For that reason, tools like Unified endpoint management (UEM), Endpoint detection and response (EDR) and Identity and access management (IAM) can provide a clearer picture of suspicious activity, especially on remote devices and endpoints that your organization doesn’t directly manage. All three can speed up the time it takes to investigate and respond to a breach and isolate and prevent it.
Improve security defenses by creating incident response measures.
An effective way to prevent costs from a data breach is to set up an incident response team, and then create and test a response plan. To learn how to react to violations faster, regularly run tabletop exercises or violation scenarios using a simulated environment. Exercises to simulate opponentsAlso known as red team exercise, can help IT departments determine the effectiveness of their response team and spot any gaps in their security capabilities.
