A new report by IBM Security and Ponemon Institute finds that the average cost of a data breach in South Africa is R32.36 million – a 12% increase from 2016.<\/p>\n
The study found that these data breaches cost companies on average R1,632 per lost or stolen record.<\/p>\n
The report comes amid reports of a new strain of ransomware \u2013 called Petya, and which emerged in Ukraine and Russia on Tuesday, and has since spread to the US and South Africa, according to MyBroadband<\/a>.<\/p>\n IBM’s report found that local organisations saw an average cost of a data breach at R32.36 million, have direct per capita cost of R809 ($62,5) and are among the markets that spend R8.07 million on post data breach response.<\/p>\n The 2017 Cost of Data Breach report also revealed that malicious or criminal attacks are the most frequent cause of a data breach locally. As much as 47% of incidents involved data theft or criminal misuse.<\/p>\n These types of incidents cost companies R1,903 ($147) per compromised record, compared to R1,425 ($110.2) and R1,432 ($110.8) per compromised record as a result of a breach caused by a system glitch or employee negligence, respectively, IBM said.<\/p>\n Top factors that contributed to the increase of cost of a data breach in South Africa include compliance failures and the extensive use of mobile platforms.<\/p>\n Companies reported that compliance failures and the extensive use of mobile platforms increased the cost of each compromised record by R79 ($6.1) and R90 ($6.9), respectively.<\/p>\n According to the study, how quickly a company can contain data breach incidents have a direct impact on financial consequences. The cost of a data breach was nearly R5 million lower on average for organisations that were able to contain a data breach in less than 30 days compared to those that took longer than 30 days.<\/p>\n On average, local companies took 155 days to identify a breach, and 44 additional days to contain a breach once discovered.<\/p>\n In South Africa, financial, services and industrial companies have topped the list as the most expensive industry for data breaches, costing companies over R1,632 ($126.2) per compromised record.<\/p>\n
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