Companies lose Rs 6 cr annually to data breaches

Indian companies lose over Rs 6 crore (Rs 60 million) annually to data breaches resulting from system glitches, human errors and malicious attacks, security software maker Symantec said.

A study done by Ponemon Institute for Symantec found that on an average it costs Indian organisations Rs 2,271 for each lost or stolen record, up eight per cent over last year.

The US and Germany incur the most costly data breaches at an average cost per compromised record of $188 and $199, respectively, it said.

These two countries also had the highest total cost per data breach -- the US at $5.4 million and Germany at $4.8 million.

A record refers to an individual's personal information that has been compromised in a data breach and regulations require notification of the breach.

"The average total organisational cost of data breach also increased from Rs 5.35 crore to Rs 6.04 crore. This represents a 12 per cent increase from last year," it said.

The study examined actual costs incurred by 28 Indian firms in 11 sectors after they experienced loss or theft of protected personal data and had to notify breach victims and/or regulators as required by laws and business contracts.

"With internal threats emerging as one of the major causes for data breach incidents in India, the need to deploy a holistic approach to security has become a business imperative," Symantec Managing Director (Sales-India and SAARC) Anand Naik told PTI.

While technology and intelligence is integral to managing risks, training employees about various security threats and how they can help prevent data loss should also be incorporated into the risk management plans, he said.

The number of breached records per incident in 2012 ranged from about 4,500 to more than 95,000. The average number of breached records was 26,586.

The study found that customers abandon companies at a higher rate following the data breach and the customer churn following a data breach increased from 2.1 per cent in 2011 to 2.7 per cent in 2012.

Certain industries like financial services, research and technology and communications are more susceptible to customer churn, which causes their data breach costs to be higher than the average, it added.

For organisations, lost business costs (including loss of customers, increased customer acquisition activities, reputation losses and diminished goodwill) increased from Rs 1.46 crore (Rs 14.6 million) in 2012 to Rs 1.53 crore (Rs 15.3 million) in 2011.