News about malicious cyber-attacks have been flooding media outlets in recent weeks as high-profile viruses (including WannaCry and Petya) continue to hit leading global and Canadian companies. What’s the cost here at home?
In June, IBM Security and Ponemon Institute released their annual series of benchmark studies exposing the cost of data breach incidents in 13 regions around the world. The results found the average cost of a data breach in Canada to be C$5.78-million, with an average cost of C$255 per lost or stolen record.
Of the regions studied, Canada was the second most expensive country for malicious data breaches. Forty-eight percent of data breaches in Canada involved a malicious attack, costing C$269 per lost or stolen record.
These results suggest that being proactive can reduce the cost of a data breach. The study shows that having an incident response team cut the average per-record cost by nine per cent, while employee training reduced the average cost by nearly six per cent.
Below are notable statistics from the study. To prepare your team to mitigate risks of a potential future data breach, download our Risk Mitigation Checklist.
