In today’s data sharing, collection and online environment, it’s almost a certainty that cyber attacks and/or data breaches will continue to happen. Such incidents will only get bigger which ultimately means more records will be exposed due to the large amounts of data that’s collected and then stored in large databases. This is what is called “data at rest” and “big data”.
“Big” and “sensitive” data collections have been the target and subject of some of the world’s largest data breaches that have happened over the past few years. Today, big data collection means bigger and more expensive data breaches.
The list below includes the world’s largest and most expensive data breaches in which large numbers of sensitive customer information (a.k.a. “PII”, Personal Identifiable Information -and/or- “PHI”, Personal Health Information) were exposed.
World’s Largest Data Breaches:
- Adobe – 38,000,000 records
- Evernote – 50,000,000 records
- Living Social – 50,000,000 records
- Yahoo Japan – 32,000,000 records
- Sony PSN – 77,000,000 records
- TJ Maxx – 94,000,000 records
- RockYou! – 32,000,000 records
- Heartland – 130,000,000 records
To drive home just how expensive a data breach can be when large numbers of records are exposed:
Using the Ponemon Institute’s “2013 Cost of a Data Breach” $188 average cost of an exposed record, the average cost of Adobe’s recent data breach totals: $714,400,000.
When a data breach happens and sensitive customer information has been exposed and/or stolen, $714,000,000 is not an optional expenditure, it’s mandatory. While it may be inconceivable this significant amount could force Adobe into bankruptcy, for other businesses and/or organizations it very well could.
While businesses and/or organizations may not be able to budget for a data breach, cyber/data breach insurance offers a fixed annual cost that reduces the risk of what’s often an unbudgeted expense.
Cyber/data breach insurance can help mitigate the costs of a data breach. By planning in advance and purchasing a cyber/data breach insurance policy, businesses and organizations can minimize their risks, costs and the impact of a data breach which helps to manage and minimize impact to reputation and brand.
Cyber insurers have already pre-negotiated the associated costs of a data breach with various vendors/experts, saving businesses and organizations money and the hassle of scrambling around and trying to put together an Incident Response team at the time of an incident.
Cyber/data breach insurance offers businesses and organizations the ability to have a team of on-call experts already on retainer all at a fixed annual cost.
Contact us today to learn how you can proactively prepare for your data breach and have a turn-key pool of funds waiting to help with your data breach response.