How much does a data breach cost UK companies?

Financial services suffer most

By John Oates, 25th February 2008

Data breaches cost UK companies an average of £47 for every record lost.

This means the average cost to a company which suffers a data breach is £1.4m. The Ponemon Institute isn't pulling these figures out of the ether - it talked to 21 UK companies about how much actual data breaches cost them.

From a total of £47 per record, the cost from lost business in the wake of a data disaster is 36 per cent or £17. Financial services companies are particularly at risk - their average costs per record are £55. Customer expectations of trust mean they also suffer a higher cost of lost business.

Phillip Dunkelberger, CEO at PGP Corporation, told The Reg: "Companies are increasingly waking up to the real cost of data losses, especially the cost of losing customers. It is a serious global problem with no easy answers."

Both PGP and Symantec, who co-sponsored the study, believe some kind of data notification law - where companies are obliged to tell a third party when a breach occurs - could help.

Ponemon estimates customer churn rates to go up by an average of 2.5 per cent after a data loss, but the worst example in the UK saw churn rates go up by seven per cent.

The size of the losses examined ranged from 2,500 records to more than 125,000 and costs ranged from £84,000 to £3.8m.

Breaches by third parties were more expensive than in-house losses - on average £59 rather than £42 in-house. This is a difficult issue for big companies to deal with, because their supply chain will include hundreds or even thousands of partner and outsourcer companies.®

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Posted Monday 25th February 2008 16:38 GMT

The Mole

Lawsuits

No matter how good your case there is always a chance that you will loose. If your case has any sort of complexity or matters of your word against his word then the chances of loosing going up. On top of that judges sometimes make mistakes, lawyers sometimes make mistakes and your opponents often can afford far better legal representation who are in a better position to find the obscure prescedents or tenuous legal arguments. Taking someone to court is a gamble and when to loose would mean to loose your house then even a 5% risk is likely to be too much for many people.

On the otherhand if they revamped the system so that the costs you win are proportionate and realistic of the difficulties you face then this would be a good start. Too many cases seem to seek massive settlements for emotional distress when there have been no real financial impact, the judge should tell these cases that emotional distress is a normal part of life and point them to a councillor or psych.

Posted Monday 25th February 2008 14:27 GMT

Anonymous Coward

@Chris, They win!

"So what about the genuine people who don't qualify for legal aid and don't have the cash to pay legal fees and have a roof over their heads?"

Under no-win-no-fee, they win, their legal costs are paid by the lawsuit.

Under no-money-down-lawsuits, they still win, and still get their legal costs are paid by the lawsuit.

Where it is different is when the claimant isn't genuine and hence loses. Under that case, the person suing still has to pay the lawyer fees (tough, serves them right for bringing a bullshit lawsuit). The lawyer than has to get the money back off them, or make them bankrupt.

The culture isn't the problem, the fact a person can take no risk to make a big reward encourages them to file bullshit lawsuits.

IT'S A GOLD RUSH, FREE MONEY. COME AND GET YOUR FREE NO RISK MONEY!

Posted Monday 25th February 2008 13:12 GMT

Chris Branch