For the last number of years, Ponemon Institute has published
reports on data breaches. The latest report, "2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study: Global
Overview" (the "Report"), is worth the read. It
explores not just the cost in dollars and organization expended
(direct and indirect costs), but also which elements can increase
and decrease the costs.
One thing to keep in mind when assessing the results of the
Report is how they have defined a data breach. For the study and
the results, a data breach is limited to events where an
individual's name and medical record, financial record or debit
card is potentially put at risk. These breaches tend to be the most
damaging. However, that's not always the case. We see a number
of data breaches that are significant for an organization that
contain information that would not fall into this scope. Therefore,
the results reflected in the Report are more or less applicable to
your organization based on the scope defined above.
