BusinessInternetSecurity

What Would a Data Breach Cost Your Business?

Have you ever wondered what a data breach would cost your company? I mean, really sat down and thought “if hackers managed to compromise our system and walk away with all of our data, what would the damages be, what would it cost us, and how would we recover?” Symantec has released a new website to help you determine the cost of a breach for your business.

The site, available at http://databreachcalculator.com, asks you a very simple set of questions to estimate the cost of a breach for your business.

Incidentally, if you are wondering exactly what a breach is, or why you should be concerned about it, I highly recommend Michael Santarcangelo’s book, “Into the Breach,” which takes a very non-technical approach at explaining it in terms anyone can understand.

The Data Breach Calculator starts with the following:

Since 2005, The Ponemon Institute has examined the cost incurred by organizations, across industry sectors, after experiencing a data breach. The results were not hypothetical responses. They represent cost estimates for activities resulting from actual data loss incidents.

Based on five years of trend data, we have created a calculator that will estimate how much a data breach could cost your organization. We can calculate:

  • The likelihood that your company will experience a data breach in the next 12 months.
  • The cost per record in the event of a data breach at your Company.
  • The cost of a data breach at your company.

The site asks you ten simple questions which any business owner should be able to answer within one or two minutes. While it is geared toward larger enterprises, evidenced by the fact that the smallest company size you can specify is “fewer than 500,” this is still a valuable tool to get an idea of just what sort of risk your organization may be facing in the event of a breach.

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