Research carried out with 21 companies in the UK has revealed that the average cost of a data security breach in 2007 was £1.4 ($2.75 US) million. That equates to around £47 ($92 US) for every single record stolen or exposed.
Companies in the financial sector, which are at a higher risk of a breach, have a cost per stolen record of £55.
The Ponemon Institute, which conducted the research, 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.
