The average cost of a data breach jumped to $4.88 million in 2024, a 10 per cent rise compared to last year, a new study from IBM has found.

The report says that the global figures represents the largest yearly jump since the pandemic.
According to IBM, around 70 per cent of breached companies have reported significant or very significant disruption following a breach.

The time to recover after a data breach can be as much as 100 days for around 12 per cent of smaller companies that manage to fully recover.

The study said that around a quarter of organisations are understaffed compared to last year and have breach costs of $1.76 million more on average than firms with low or no security staffing issues.

It also found that two thirds of organisations are using AI and automation in their security centres and save on average $2.2 million compare to those who do not use it.

Around 40 per cent of breaches involved data stored across multiple environments including public cloud, private cloud, and on-prem. These breaches cost more than $5 million on average and took the longest, around 283 days, to identify and contain.

"As generative AI rapidly permeates businesses, expanding the attack surface, these expenses will soon become unsustainable, compelling business to reassess security measures and response strategies,” said Kevin Skapinetz, vice president, strategy and product design at IBM Security. “To get ahead, businesses should invest in new AI-driven defences and develop the skills needed to address the emerging risks and opportunities presented by generative AI."

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