Security News > 2021 > July > IBM: Average Cost of Data Breach Exceeds $4.2 Million

A global study commissioned by IBM Security shows that the average cost of a data breach exceeded $4.2 million during the coronavirus pandemic, which the company pointed out is the highest in the 17-year history of its "Cost of a Data Breach" report.

The average cost of a data breach increased by nearly 10% compared to the previous year, from $3.86 million to $4.24 million, but IBM noted that "Costs were significantly lower for some of organizations with a more mature security posture, and higher for organizations that lagged in areas such as security AI and automation, zero trust and cloud security."

Another noteworthy finding is that the cost of a data breach was more than $1 million higher in the case of incidents where remote work contributed to the breach.

In the energy sector the average data breach cost dropped to $4.65 million from $6.39 million.

For PII records, the average cost per record was $180, and the overall average cost per record was $161, up from $146 in the previous year.

Fourteen companies in IBM's study experienced a mega breach, and costs ranged between $52 million for breaches impacting up to 10 million records and $401 million for the largest breaches, which involved up to 65 million records.

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