Neither companies nor their customers want data breaches, but for more and more it seems the almost inevitable cost of doing business. In recent years, there has been a definite uptick in the number of incidents where data is reportedly compromised both in the corporate and governmental worlds. Along with the rise in the number of incidents, the costs associated with these data breaches have risen as well.

A study recently released by IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute reports the average cost of a company''s data breach is US $4 million per event. The $4 million dollar figure is almost a 30% increase in cost since 2013. The study also confirms the uptick in data security incidents with a noted increase of 64% in reported events from 2014 to 2015. Most of the costs associated with a data breach stem from communication costs, legal expenditures, incident forensics and regulatory mandates.

So what can companies do to avoid a data breach as much as possible and if one occurs, how can they handle the breach to minimize costs and interruptions in their business? According to the same study, one of the best ways to reduce the costs associated with a data breach is to already have an incident response team in place. Those that had such teams showed in reduction in costs on average of about $400,000 per breach. Having a technology team dedicated to handling data breaches also reduced the time it took to identify a breach from 201 days down to 70. Enabling a company to identify a breach sooner rather than later benefits businesses and their customers and reduces costs and grievances for both.

For more information on how to avoid a data breach as much as possible and how to implement effective strategies should one occur, please contact us.