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Cost of just one cyber attack revealed in new report

Published on: 25 Sep 2017

A typical North American enterprise can expect a cyber attack to hit their bottom line to the tune of $1.3 million (£960,610).

That’s according to a new report from Kaspersky Lab that also found that the total impact of a data breach on a small-to-medium business is $117,000 per incident.

The report revealed that average IT security budgets for enterprises have dropped globally by close to half, from $25.5 million last year to $13.7 million in 2017.

Kaspersky says this is a concern as the cost of recovering from a security breach is not getting any cheaper.

The top financial loss in North America when a data breach occurs stems from additional staff wages needed for enterprises ($207k), compared to loss of business ($21k) and having to employ external professionals ($21k) for SMBs.

The most costly cyber security threats to enterprises are the physical loss of devices or media containing data, while for SMBs, it is targeted attacks.

Kaspersky urged businesses to recognise these risks and ensure they have security measures in place to manage threats to their organisation, as the cost will only grow further when GDPR becomes enforceable with fines.