26/02/2008

A new study has calculated the average cost per record for a UK firm when a data breach has occurred.

The Ponemon Institute conducted the study that was sponsored by Symantec and PGP Corporation and found that while the average cost per record was £47, the average total for the companies surveyed was £1.4 million, with some companies losing as much as £3.8 million worth of data.

Records from financial institutions was found to be the most expensive, with an average cost of £55 per record for firms, while retail was also high at an average of £51 per record.

Symantec's vice president of the Northern Region, Europe, Middle East and Africa said: "So much of this is about confidence. Banks do not have the infrastructure for you and me to be coming into the bank."

Contractors and outside handling firms also had a high number of breaches, with about 38 per cent these outside partners experiencing loss of data, with an extremely high cost per record of £59.