Cybercrime costing every business USD 11.7 mln a year – study

The average cost of cybercrime globally surged to USD 11.7 million per business last year, up 23 percent from USD 9.5 million in 2016 and a 62 percent increase over the last five years, according to a new report from Accenture and the Ponemon Institute. The survey of 2,182 security and IT professionals in 254 organisations revealed that a company suffers 130 breaches per year on average, up 27.4 percent from last year and almost double what it was five years ago. Companies in the financial services and energy sectors are the worst hit, with an average annual cost of USD 18.28 million and USD 17.20 million respectively.
 
The report also found that malware and web-based attacks are the two most costly attack types with companies spending an average of USD 2.4 million and USD 2 million respectively. The most time-consuming incidents are those involving malicious insiders, which take on average 50 days to mitigate while ransomware takes an average of more than 23 days, said the release.
 
Other findings include the fact that companies in the US incurred the highest total average cost at USD 21.22 million while Germany experienced the most significant increase in total cyber-crime costs from USD 7.84 million to USD 11.15 million.

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