Security Breach Costs: Often a Half-Million Dollars or More

The threat from cyber attacks today is nearing statistical certainty and businesses of every type and size are vulnerable to attacks, according to a survey of U.S. IT and security professionals conducted independently by Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Juniper Networks.

The survey found that 90 percent of businesses fell victim to a cyber security breach at least once in the past 12 months, with more than half (59 percent) of respondents citing two or more breaches. As a result of these multiple breaches, 34 percent of respondents say they have low confidence in the ability of their organization’s IT infrastructure to prevent a network security breach.

There has also been a significant increase in the frequency of cyber attacks during the past 12 months according to 43 percent of respondents, with 77 percent saying these attacks have become more severe or difficult to detect or contain. Almost half (41 percent) of companies indicate that security breaches have cost them at least a half-million dollars to address in terms of cash outlays, business disruption, revenue losses, internal labor, overhead and other expenses. Most respondents (59 percent) report that the most severe consequence of any breach was the theft of information assets, followed by business disruption.

“Our survey research provides evidence that many organizations are ill-equipped to prevent cyber attacks against networks and enterprise systems,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. “This study suggests conventional network security methods need to improve in order to curtail internal and external threats.”

Additional key findings from the survey include:

* Only 11 percent of respondents know the source of all network security breaches.

* Almost half (48 percent) cite complexity as one of their biggest challenges to implementing network security solutions, with the same percentage of respondents citing resource constraints.

* Cyber attacks can be combated more effective by streamlining or simplifying network security operations, according to 76 percent of respondents.

* Seventy-five percent say their effectiveness would increase by implementing end-to-end security solutions.

* Twenty-eight percent are earmarking more than 10 percent of their IT budgets to security to address these issues.

* Employee mobile devices and laptops are the most likely endpoints from which serious cyber attacks are unleashed.

“Milestone helps clients determine and implement comprehensive, end-to-end security to help mitigate the risk associated with the latest cyber attacks,” said Rob Edinger, Security Practice Manager, Milestone Systems. “Milestone can help organizations combat these costly and complex threats with an aggressive, systemic approach that also takes into account network performance and access requirements. We make sure that our customers’ business-critical systems are available, and then ensure that those systems are secure and data is protected.”

Don’t let a security breach cost your business. Call Milestone toll-free 866-646-9211 or e-mail info@milestonesystems.com to discuss your data-protection strategy.