Security Watch | Matt Hines » CompTIA: Data breaches growing in severity

September 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

CompTIA: Data breaches growing in severity

TAGS: Security

Data leakage events continue to become more serious, with the types of information that companies are losing or having stolen becoming increasingly strategic and valuable, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA).

Based on the latest data breach study published by the consortium of IT companies -- which currently claims over 22,000 corporate members in over 100 countries around the world -- the businesses it polled regarding their information leakage incidents rated the value of the lost content a 4.8 on a 1-to-10 scale, compared to 2.3 in 2006 and 2.6 in 2005.

The report serves as evidence that while companies are doing more than ever to prevent breaches, targeted attacks on valuable data such as credit card and social security information are likely ramping up.

"This suggests that while the number of security breaches has stabilized, the breaches that are occurring are having a greater impact than ever on organizations," said Brian McCarthy, chief operating officer of CompTIA.

The survey also found many security breaches originate internally, with 23 percent of respondents reporting that they had experienced a data loss incident that was carried out by insiders.

CompTIA reported that there were no "significant differences" exposed in its study regarding the nature of breaches experienced by different sized companies, however, those smaller organizations surveyed did report marginally less-severe returns.

According to the research, the average cost of a security breach across all companies was $369,388, a figure that the group said was skewed by a handful of companies who indicated leakage-related expenses over $10 million.

For roughly 50 percent of respondents, the cost of security breaches in the last 12 months was $10,000 or less, the report said.

CompTIA also asked companies to elaborate how they were allocating resources to respond to a breach. Respondents said there were spending as such:

-Dealing with employee productivity impact: 35 percent
-Handling server or network downtime: 21 percent
-Managing the impact on revenue-generating activities: 20 percent
-Dealing with the impact on physical assets: 17 percent
-Paying related legal fees and/or fines: 8 percent

Posted by Matt Hines on September 18, 2007 02:08 PM

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