What's the Average Cost of an SMB Data Breach?

Like most small to medium-sized businesses, your company lacks a bottomless budget. As such, you are actively trying to trim your costs so that you can profit — and stay in business — throughout 2018 and beyond.

For this reason, it’s vital that you avoid a data breach. You may not have the necessary resources to recover from one. 

According to one study, which analyzed over 5,000 businesses across 30 countries, the average cost of a data breach is now $117,000 per incident.

Here is a breakdown of this figure:

• Of the average $117,000 cost per data breach, $21,000 was allocated towards hiring external experts;
• $21,000 was spent on lost business;
• $16,000 went to additional wages for staff, credit rating damage and insurance premium spikes;
• $11,000 went to software and infrastructure;
• $10,000 went to brand damage; 
• $10,000 went to hiring new staff members;
• $9,000 was spent on training, and;
• $8,000 was allocated to compensation.

Some types of cyberattacks, it should be noted, are more expensive than others. Targeted attacks, for instance, cost an average of $188,000. Security incidents impacting non-computing IoT devices cost about $152,000 per incident. Inappropriate uses of IT resources cost $79,000, while the loss of devices with sensitive data cost about $83,000.

Of course, large enterprises typically pay much more for data breaches with an average cost of $1.3 million. This figure jumped from $1.2 million in 2016.

So as you plan ahead for 2018, it’s vital that you look for ways to mitigate cyberrisks. It could save your business.