Hackers break into company computer systems and steal confidential information. i.e. they make copies of it for their own purposes.
The hackers might then ransom the data back to the owner or sell it to a competitor or sell it to other scammers or might make us of it in phishing scams i.e. to get more confidential information which they can then sell to fraudsters.
This is big business and usually it’s the customers of the hacked business that suffer.
We give our private and financial information to companies to do business with them but we expect they will do everything necessary to keep that data secure.
Many companies do have excellent data security but some fall short.
The cost to a company of a data breach can include:-
- Creation of contact databases
- Regulatory requirements
- External experts
- Postal costs
- Communications set-ups
- Audit services
- Helpdesk
- Legal expenditures
- Reimbursement for customers
- Cost of cleaning up data
Besides the material costs, there may be reputation damage.
Recent research shows:-
- The average cost of a data breach is $3.86 million
- The average global total cost per record stolen is $141 but there is huge variance across incidents.
- Companies in South Africa and India have the highest chance of data breaches whereas companies in Germany and Canada have the lowest.
- The mean time to identify and contain a breach is 280 days
- The faster the breach is recognised, then generally the lower the total cost
- The increasing use of mobile platforms is increasing the chances of data breaches.
For information on how to recognise a cyber-attack see
[facts taken from 2020 Cost of Data Breach Study]
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