Play Ball! Inside the Numbers 

We live in a world of statistics. Everywhere we look, there is a new stat on consumer products or investments or sports. Anyone catch the MLB All Star Game this week? Right there in the scorebox, you not only get the basics (score, hits, outs) but we’re now privy to things like the pitch type, speed, and count. Or how about how fast the ball travels off the end of the bat? Holy cow, Yankees’ rookie phenom Aaron Judge just hit another home run over 500 feet and at an unheard of 119 miles per hour!

It’s as though we just can’t get enough. But all that data is both interesting and useful to us.

Whether to purchase a certain type of car or when to buy an airline ticket, stats help us make educated decisions on things every day. The same certainly holds true in the world of cybersecurity.

The Ponemon Institute is a leading authority on research on privacy, data protection, and information security. They just released their 12th annual 2017 Cost of a Breach Study enlightening us to some very interesting statistics. You can access the full report here, but we’ve taken the liberty to make your day easy! A handful of interesting stats:

1 in 4 will experience a breach

With that kind of ratio, it’s important not only to keep your organization in mind but think about everyone you’re doing business with. There is hope! A strong cybersecurity program can help keep you on the right side of this stat.

$225 Each – Average cost per lost or stolen record in the United States ($141 globally)

A “record” contains an individual’s personal information. They’re the holy grail for hackers—it’s what they sell on the Dark Web (whats that?!) to cash in on their thievery. For example, a single record might include an employee name and their driver’s license info. Or a patient’s name and their health history. The actual price per record varies by industry. Healthcare records take the cake at $380/record.

191 Days – Average time for a company to discover a breach

This is how long it takes the average organization to finally discover that they’ve had a breach. That’s over 5 months before anyone even realizes what’s happened!

66 Days – Average time it takes to completely contain a breach

Once the breach is detected this is the estimated amount of time to remediate and ensure that the attack is fully stopped.

$1,900,000 – Average total cost (to a company) when less than 10,000 compromised records are lost or stolen

More lost records means higher costs. When records exceed 50,000 the total costs increase dramatically to $6,300,000.

Taking steps to prevent a breach is the best thing an organization can do to protect themselves, as once it has occurred it can be absolutely devastating.

Top 3 ways to reduce per capita cost of a data breach:

• Have an incident response team (i.e. be prepared with an incident response plan)
• Use encryption technology (i.e. encrypt data on hard drives and when emailed or transmitted)
• Conduct employee training (i.e. make every employee a defender with training & simulations)

An ongoing cybersecurity program works 24/7/365 to help protect your business, brand, customers, and employees. For the best defense, it should be multilayered. For example, we ensure programs incorporate elements of Framework, Culture, and Technology. And finally, it needs to fit within budget—you’re not Google or Amazon or Target, but there is always something you can do to improve your cybersecurity posture.

We’re always happy to answer your questions—just let us know!

Stay Safe,

Your Friends @ Defendify