The average cost of a data breach has reached a new record high of $4.88 million in 2024, according to IBM's annual Cost of a Data Breach Report. This represents a 10% increase over the previous year and the largest jump since the pandemic.
Key Statistics
- $4.88 million: Global average total cost of a data breach
- 277 days: Average time to identify and contain a breach
- $165: Average cost per compromised record
- $5.72 million: Average cost in the financial services sector
Cost Breakdown
The total cost of a breach includes several components:
Detection and Escalation (38%)
Activities that enable a company to detect and report the breach, including forensic investigation, assessment activities, and crisis management.
Post-Breach Response (29%)
Costs incurred after the breach including help desk activities, inbound communications, credit monitoring, identity protection services, and regulatory fines.
Lost Business (23%)
Revenue lost due to system downtime, customer churn, and the cost of acquiring new customers to replace those lost.
Notification (10%)
Costs associated with notifying affected individuals, regulators, and other third parties as required by law.
Factors That Reduce Costs
The report identified several factors that significantly reduced breach costs:
- AI and automation: Organizations with extensive use of security AI saved an average of $2.2 million per breach
- Incident response planning: Having a tested IR plan saved $473,706 on average
- Employee training: Regular security awareness training reduced costs by $232,867
- Encryption: Extensive use of encryption saved $360,000 on average
What This Means for Your Business
Even if your business is smaller than the enterprises in IBM's study, the proportional impact of a breach could be devastating. A $120,000 breach could be an extinction event for a small practice.
The good news: the same investments that reduce breach costs for large enterprises work for small businesses too. Encryption, employee training, incident response planning, and security monitoring are all included in every NPC Data Guard plan.
Compare our plans to find the right level of protection for your business.