Report: US Has The Highest Average Cost For Data Breaches

More than 8.5 billion records were compromised in data breaches in the span of one year ending April 2020, and the average cost of a mega-sized data breach was $3.86 million, a new report by IBM has found.

IBM’s annual Cost of a Data Breach report is conducted by the Ponemon Institute. The report is based on the analysis of 17 multinational companies that experienced a data breach involving the loss or theft of one million or more records.

The global average cost of a data breach that affects over a million records is $3.86 million, the report revealed.

In terms of individual countries and regions, the US has the highest average cost for data breaches, at $8.64 million.

The Middle East came in second, with an average cost of $6.52 million. Canada is the third highest, with $4.5 million.