ME posts world’s highest increase in data breach costs

The Middle East is posting the world’s highest increase in data breach costs, with the average organisation risking nearly $5 million per data breach, showing the urgency in adopting data protection strategies, security experts announced.

Worldwide, organisations are facing increasing risk of material data breaches — when at least 1,000 customer or citizen digital records are lost or stolen, whether from system glitches, human error or criminal activity. As organisations deploy cloud applications and connect more devices to networks, they are also increasing the risk for data breaches.

As a result, the average Middle East organisational cost of data breaches has risen by 20 per cent from $4.12 million in 2016 to $4.94 million in 2017, according to a recent report by the Ponemon Institute, presented at the recent RSA conference.

In response, organisations need to ramp up their data protection, argues IT infrastructure and information management consultancy and solutions provider Condo Protego.

“Data breaches can be catastrophic for Middle East organisations. Middle East organisations need holistic data protection strategies and solutions to prevent, contain, and remediate data breaches. Solutions from endpoint security to data backup and recovery can reduce costs, ensure business continuity, and enhance customer trust,” said Savitha Bhaskar (pictured), COO, Condo Protego.

Encouragingly, the Middle East does have the world’s second-highest spending on data breach response, at $1.43 million per organisation, the report adds.