Security breaches reach highest ever levels
The number of security breaches affecting UK business continues to increase.
The rise is most notable for small businesses; they’re now experiencing incident levels previously only seen in larger organisations.
- 93% of large business had a security breach last year
- 87% of small businesses had a security breach in the last year (up from 76% a year ago)
Affected companies experienced roughly 50% more breaches on average than a year ago.
- 113 is the median number of breaches suffered by a large organisation in the last year (up from 71 a year ago)
- 17 is the median number of breaches suffered by a small business in the last year (up from 11 a year ago)
The cost of individual breaches continues to vary widely. The average cost of respondents’ worst breach of the year has never higher, with several individual breaches costing more than £1m.
- £450k – 850k is the average cost to a large organisation of its worst security breach of the year
- £35k – 65k is the average cost to a small business of its worst security breach of the year
In total, the cost to UK plc of security breaches is of the order of billions of pounds per annum – it’s roughly tripled over the last year.
