Data breaches are unfortunately becoming so common that the shock and alarm is fading away. It is even difficult to remember them all. Infamous breaches like the ones at Target and Sony become almost forgettable when confronted with the recently disclosed half-billion accounts compromised at Yahoo in 2014. Network World brought this news to us in their article, “How much does a data breach actually cost?

It has been estimated that over 900,000,000 records of personally identifiable information (PII) have been stolen in the U.S. over the past few years. But what is the cost of these attacks? The numbers will stun you.

According to a recent report, the total average cost for a breach is $7 million. When a data breach happens, many things happen. Executives lose their jobs, billion-dollar mergers are put in jeopardy and it takes enormous sums of money to fix the breach. This means organizations spend more on the indirect costs than direct costs of a data breach.

Melody K. Smith

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