The amount of so-called mega breaches – cases that involve more than 1m records being lost – have nearly doubled over the last five years, with 16 mega breaches occurring in 2017. Data compiled by IBM revealed that breaches on this scale can cost a business anywhere from $40m (£30m) to $340m, with more than 90 per cent of these breaches stemming from malicious and criminal attacks as opposed to glitches or human error. Tim Helming, Director of Product Management at DomainTools commented below.
Tim Helming, Director of Product Management at DomainTools:
“This is a worrying, but expected statistic. The cost of breaches has skyrocketed in recent years due to a commercialization of the cybercrime industry, with attack kits available to purchase for non-technical actors to ply their trade. Legislative changes such as GDPR will also make the administrative costs of a breach soar even further in the next five years, without even considering the implications of reputational costs. I’m slightly doubtful that human error accounts for so little of the breach activity; failing to have a proper culture cybersecurity awareness at an organisation is implicated in phishing, which is one of the leading vectors of breaches. The ultimate responsibility for this lies with humans.”
