A new study finds that the average cost of a data breach for companies has grown to $4 million, representing a 29% increase since 2013. According to the study, from IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute, cybersecurity incidents continue to grow in both volume and sophistication, with 64% more security incidents reported in 2015 than in 2014. The study found that companies lose $158 per compromised record.
Breaches in highly regulated industries were even more costly, with healthcare reaching $355 per record – a full $100 more than in 2013. Companies need more incident response teams, the study’s authors recommend. Companies that had predefined business continuity management processes in place found and contained breaches more quickly, discovering breaches 52 days earlier and containing them 36 days faster than companies without such processes.
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