For the eighth straight year, data breaches in healthcare had the highest cost compared to other industries, according to a new report from IBM and the Ponemon Institute, the National Law Review reported.
The report was generated from data collected during over 2,000 interviews with data protection, IT and compliance professionals spanning 477 companies around the world.
Here are five important facts from the report:
1. Healthcare data breaches cost an average of $408 per record, which is three times higher than the cross-industry average of $148 per record.
2. The cost per record is an increase from last year’s cost of $380.
3. The factors contributing to the healthcare industry's high costs include compliance with laws and regulations and customers walking away from a company due to mistrust.
4. Fast response times in containing and identifying breaches lowers the cost per record, the report said. On average, it took companies 197 days to identify a breach, and 69 days to contain it. If companies identified a breach in less than 100 days, it saved $1 million compared to companies that took longer.
5. Incident response teams reduce the cost of data breaches by $14 per record, and encryption saves $13.
Click here to view the full report.
