The average total cost of a data breach has reached an all-time high of $4.45 million this year, a 2.3% increase from 2022’s total, says a report.
The average cost has increased 15.3% from $3.86 million in the 2020 report, according to the Cost of a Data Breach Report issued Monday, which was based on an analysis by IBM Corp. unit IBM Security of research compiled by the Traverse City, Michigan-based Ponemon Institute.
Health care data breaches’ cost have increased 53.3% since 2020, with an average cost of $10.93 million, the report said. It reported the highest costs across industries for the 13th year in a row in 2023. In 2023, it is followed by financial companies, with $5.9 million in costs.
Among other survey findings, 51% of organizations said they plan to increase security investments as a result of a breach.
A total of 82% of breaches involved data stored in the cloud, either in public, private or multiple environments.
Nearly one-quarter of attacks involved ransomware, with the average cost of a ransomware attack increasing 13%, to $5.13 million, when compared with the 2022 report.
The study found that organizations that paid ransom during a ransomware attack achieved only a 2.2% difference in total cost, at $5.06 million, compared with $5.17 million for those that did not. This does not include the cost of the ransom itself.
The report is based on information from 553 organizations, with the breaches studied occurring between March 2022 and March 2023.
