Data breaches are costlier and more impactful than ever, according to a major study from IBM.
Surveying 550 organizations worldwide, the company says the global average cost of a data breach has now reached €4,35 million, an all-time high and a 13% increase from the same period two years ago. .
However, it's not just affected businesses that feel the sting of a data breach, everyone else feels it too, albeit passively. IBM says that increased costs for goods and services may also be related to these incidents. The company bases these findings on the fact that nearly two-thirds (60%) of respondents said they had increased the prices of their products or services due to a data breach.
Pay ransomware does not pay
Also, if one company suffers a data breach, another will suffer. According to the report, more than four in five (83%) have experienced more than one violation in their lifetime. Then there are the aftermath of breaches: almost half (50% of breach costs are incurred more than a year after the initial incident).
The report also states that companies that experience a ransomware attack and decide to pay for their data generally do not end up with lower breach costs than those that do not. Ransomware victims who chose to pay saw just €610,000 less in average breach costs, and that doesn't include the ransom cost.
For IBM, having an antivirus solution (opens in a new tab) will no longer be enough.
"Businesses need to put their security defenses on the attack and beat the attackers. It's time to stop the adversary from achieving their goals and start minimizing the impact of attacks. The more businesses try to refine their perimeter instead of investing in detection and response, more breaches can drive higher cost of living," said Charles Henderson, global head of IBM Security X-Force. "This report shows that the right strategies combined with the right technologies can help make a difference when businesses are under attack."
The IBM report suggests that Zero Trust is the way forward. However, 80% of critical infrastructure organizations said they have not yet adopted the practice on their endpoints (opens in a new tab), despite paying an average of €1,17 million more for data breaches , compared to those with Zero Trust.
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