Ponemon Institute estimates an average breach cost of $3.5 million in 2017, with a 27% probability that a U.S. company will experience a breach in the next 24 months that costs them between $1.1M and $3.8M. If you multiply Ponemon’s estimated per-record cost for a breach, split out by industry vertical, many of the breaches listed at the end of this article would potentially cost hundreds of millions of dollars. There are other cost factors: Yahoo’s acquisition by Verizon saw a $350M reduction in purchase price due to a loss of 1.5 billion records. The IRS estimates that due to a scheme involving the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, used to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), it cost the government (and taxpayers) $30 million in fraudulent tax returns. Health insurer Anthem has agreed to a $115 million settlement in connection with a breach that impacted 80 million of their customers. It’s interesting to note that if multiplied by Ponemon’s estimated per-record breach cost of $380 for the health vertical, their liability would have been over $3 billion.
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