Data Breach Costs Continue to Rise

March 22, 2011 - PRLog -- A recent survey by Symantec has highlighted a continuing rise in the costs to business of data security breaches, with the average breach now costing £1.9m.

It also reported a staggering 31% of incidents were caused by employee negligence - losing laptop computers, mobile phones and USB memory sticks containing critical data.

The costs to business of data breaches are made up from the money spent investigating the incident, resolving technical issues, staff training and damages - to clients and to legal and regulatory bodies such as the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) and the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

In addition, when a data breach occurs, there are the costs involved in replacing existing customers who leave because of the incident with new customers.

Much of these costs can be reduced or avoided by implementing a holistic approach to information and data security. This approach involves developing appropriate security policies, implementing relevant business and technological systems, investing in a program of employee training and awareness, and then testing and measuring the effectiveness of your controls.

At he end of the day, regulatory responsibilities and so-called compliance are generally only a box ticking exercise. Having effective data security controls is about more than just ticking boxes.

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Secure Thinking specialise in helping individuals, businesses and other organisations protect sensitive information, shield their customers and safeguard their interests. Our approach is a combination of policy, technical, training and testing solutions