No company wants to experience a data breach. But sadly, it’s difficult to avoid them in the environment of today altogether. In 83% of the organizations, there have been multiple data breaches. (IBM Security 2022 Cost of a Data Breach Report)
Many ways exist for these breaches to harm businesses. The immediate cost of fixing the breach comes first. The costs of lost productivity are another factor. To that, you can also add lost sales and eroded customer confidence. A breach may also result in high legal fees for the company.
The cost of a data breach, according to a report by IBM Security, increased once more in 2022. One breach now costs $4.35 million globally, an increase of 2.6% from the previous year. If your company is in the US, the price jumps to $9.44 million. Companies in Canada incur an average loss of $5.64 million due to data breaches.
Smaller businesses typically have slightly lower costs. But SMBs are frequently more severely hurt by breaches. They lack the resources larger businesses have to cover all those expenses.
According to estimates, 60% of small businesses fail within six months of a cybersecurity breach.
Companies don’t have to accept the inescapable doom of a data breach. They can reduce costs by utilizing some tried-and-true strategies. These cybersecurity procedures can reduce a cyberattack’s potential harm.
These conclusions are all drawn from the IBM Security report. They contain specific data on the advantages of enhancing your cybersecurity strategy.
Cybersecurity Tactics to Reduce the Impact of a Breach
Use a Hybrid Cloud Approach
For data storage and business operations, the majority of organizations use the cloud. According to research, the cloud is the location of 45% of all data breaches. But not all cloud computing strategies are created equal.
Breach costs in a hybrid cloud are much lower than in a public cloud. A hybrid cloud is what? It denotes that some processes and data are stored in a private cloud environment, and others are in a public cloud.
Some people might be surprised to learn that a hybrid cloud strategy is superior to a private cloud.
Graph from: IBM Security/Ponemon Institute 2022 Cost of a Data Breach Report
Put in Place an Incident Response Plan & Practice It
An incident response (IR) plan can be written by a small business as well as a large corporation. The IR plan is nothing more than a set of guidelines. Employees must abide by it in the event that any number of cybersecurity incidents take place.
Here’s an illustration. Disconnecting the infected device should be the initial action in ransomware cases. IR plans to improve the effectiveness and speed of a response to a security crisis.
An incident response strategy that has been tested lowers the cost of a data breach. It reduces it by $2.66 million on average per incident.
Adopt a Zero Trust Security Approach
A group of security protocols known as zero trust combines to strengthen a network. Multi-factor authentication, application safelisting, and contextual user authentication are a few of these.
The adoption of zero trust is still lacking in 79% of critical infrastructure organizations. Costs related to data breaches can be significantly decreased by doing this. Companies that don’t use zero trust strategies pay an extra $1 million for each data breach.
Use Tools with Security AI & Automation
Utilizing the appropriate security tools can significantly reduce the expense associated with a data breach. The most significant cost savings came from using security AI and automation tools.
The cost of a data breach was reduced by 65.2% as a result of automation and AI security solutions. Advanced threat protection is one of these types of solutions (ATP). Applications that look for threats and automate the response may also be included.
How to Get Started Improving Your Cyber Resilience
Many of these techniques for reducing the cost of data breaches are just best practices. Starting now, you can implement updates to your cybersecurity strategy one at a time.
Create a roadmap with the assistance of a reliable IT service provider. First, take care of the “low-hanging fruit.” Continue with longer-term projects after that.
Multi-factor authentication would be an illustration of “low-hanging fruit.” It is inexpensive and simple to implement. Additionally, it dramatically lowers the chance of a cloud breach.
Making an incident response plan could be a longer-term task. After that, you would create a schedule for your team to practice the plan on a regular basis. You could work out any kinks in those drills.
Need Help Improving Your Security & Reducing Risk?
Need Assistance Increasing Your Security & Reducing Risk?
Working with a reliable IT partner relieves you of a lot of security-related stress.