Average cost of data breach rises to Rs 13 crore: IBM study

The average cost of a data breach in India has increased by 7.3% to Rs 12.8 crore this year, according to an  IBM study released today.

The report added that Rs 5,019 is the per capita cost per lost or stolen record, an increase of 9.76% from the previous year.

In another worrying trend, the mean time taken to identify the data breach has increased from 188 to 221 days, indicating that the attacks are getting increasingly sophisticated. 

The average time taken to contain the data breach declined by one day to 77 days from 78 days last year.

A majority of the data breaches were due to malicious or criminal attacks, accounting for 51% of the cases. System glitch was the reason behind 27% of the data breaches while human error accounted for 22%.

India is witnessing a significant change in the nature of cybercrimes, with the attacks becoming more organised and collaborative, according to Vaidyanathan Iyer, security software leader at IBM India and South Asia.

"In the digital era, cognitive security can provide both speed and scale for organizations [sic] to go about their digital transformation journey with minimal business disruptions,” Iyer said. “Cognitive security is designed to augment human intelligence and aid security professionals. The technology learns with each interaction to proactively detect, analyse and provide actionable insights into threats.” 

Organisations need to invest in three core areas for cybersecurity ⁠— risk assessment based on business objectives, cognitive threat management and digital trust, the study said.

In terms of per capita cost, the sectors that were affected the most in India were industrial, pharmaceuticals, technology services and the financial sector.

Globally, the cost of a data breach has risen 12% over the past five years, the report said.

"Companies need to be aware of the full financial impact that a data breach can have on their bottom line –and focus on how they can reduce these costs,” Wendi Whitmore, global lead for IBM X-Force incident response and intelligence services, said.   

The study was sponsored by IBM Security and conducted by the Ponemon Institute. It was based on data from interviews with 500 companies around the world that suffered a breach over the past year. The analysis had taken into account hundreds of cost factors including legal, regulatory and technical activities to loss of brand equity, customers, and employee productivity.