Successful Data Breach Response: What Organisations Should Look Out For

Rehana C Harasgama, Jan Kleiner and Viviane Berger¹
Bär & Karrer Ltd

Introduction

With every passing year, the world is becoming more digitalised. The amount of data that is being processed is increasing exponentially and with it the risk of data (as a critical asset) being lost, unlawfully accessed or destroyed and thereby endangering the value of an affected company's value. In 2021, in the United States alone, data breaches increased by about 17 per cent by the third quarter compared to the whole of 2020.² Moreover, Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that worldwide annual costs for cybercrime will increase to US$10.5 trillion annually by 2025, compared to US$3 trillion in 2015, which may also lower the value of affected companies' data assets.³ Both LinkedIn and Facebook were subject to data breaches, affecting about 700 million users and 553 million users, respectively.⁴ In the European Union, supervisory authorities issued fines ranging from a mere €285