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Sponsored by PGP Corporation and Vontu, Study Shows 31 Percent Increase in Financial Impact of Data Loss Incidents since 2005
Elk Rapids, MI and New York, NY, CA/23 October – At Infosecurity NY 2006, PGP Corporation, Vontu, Inc, and The Ponemon Institute, a privacy and information management research firm, released the 2006 Annual Study: Cost of a Data Breach. This benchmark analysis details the financial impact of data loss incidents on affected companies. Initiated in 2005, the study examines all financial consequences of data breaches involving consumers’ personally identifiable information. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, more than 330 data loss incidents involving more than 93 million individual records have occurred since February 2005.
According to the study’s 2006 findings, data breaches cost companies an average of $182 per compromised record, a 31 percent increase over 2005. The Ponemon Institute analyzed 31 different incidents for the study. Total costs for each ranged from less than $1 million to more than $22 million.
The 2006 Cost of a Data Breach Study tracks a wide range of cost factors, including legal, investigative, and administrative expenses, as well as stock performance, customer defections, opportunity loss, reputation management, and costs associated with customer support such as information hotlines and credit monitoring subscriptions. "The burden companies must bear as a result of a data breach are significant, making a strong case for more strategic investments in preventative measures such as encryption and data loss prevention," said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of The Ponemon Institute. "Tough laws and intense public scrutiny mean the consequences of poor security are steep—and growing steeper for companies entrusted with managing stores of consumer data."
“Once again, the Ponemon survey illuminates the high costs companies will incur for failing to protecting their customers’ data,” said Andrew Krcik, vice president of marketing for PGP Corporation. “The report shows companies must spend prodigiously to recover from data breaches. In fact, 72 percent of respondents indicated that the cause of the data breach was because digital information was not properly protected. In light of these findings, it’s not surprising that companies such as PGP Corporation and Vontu are seeing an increasing shift to preventative solutions.”
”The new Ponemon study confirms what we hear every day from our enterprise customers, that they simply cannot afford to allow confidential data loss to continue,” said Steve Roop, vice president of products and marketing, Vontu. “By investing in technology solutions from PGP Corporation and Vontu, companies are able to quickly reduce their risk of data loss by as much as 90 percent.”
A separate report recently issued by Vontu and The Ponemon Institute, U.S. Survey: Confidential Data At Risk, demonstrates that companies do not have adequate controls over the storage of sensitive or confidential data at rest. In that study, 81 percent of respondents reported that their organizations have experienced one or more lost or missing laptop computers that contained sensitive or confidential business information in the past 12-month period.
The 2006 Cost of a Data Breach Study was co-sponsored by PGP Corporation, a global leader in enterprise data security and encryption solutions, and Vontu, the leader in data loss prevention solutions.Copies of the 2006 Cost of a Data Breach Study are available through PGP Corporation, Vontu, and The Ponemon Institute.
PGP Corporation will host an executive panel at InfoSecurity NY on Wednesday, October 25, at 11am ET to discuss the research findings and explore ways companies can reduce the risk of data loss. Panel participants will include industry experts and customers. To attend the panel or for more information, visit www.infosecurityevent.com.
About the Ponemon Institute
The Ponemon Institute© is dedicated to advancing responsible information and privacy management practices in business and government. To achieve this objective, the Institute conducts independent research, educates leaders from the private and public sectors and verifies the privacy and data protection practices of organizations in a variety of industries.
About PGP Corporation
PGP Corporation, a global security software company, is the leader in email and data encryption. Based on a unified key management and policy infrastructure, the PGP® Encryption Platform offers the broadest set of integrated applications for enterprise data security. PGP platform-enabled applications allow organizations to meet current needs and expand as security requirements evolve for email, laptops, desktops, instant messaging, PDAs, network storage, FTP and bulk data transfers, and backups.
PGP® solutions are used by more than 30,000 enterprises, businesses, and governments worldwide, including 94 percent of the Fortune® 100 and 76 percent of Germany’s DAX index. As a result, PGP Corporation has earned a global reputation for innovative, standards-based, and trusted solutions. PGP solutions help protect confidential information, secure customer data, achieve regulatory and audit compliance, and safeguard companies’ brands and reputations. Contact PGP Corporation at www.pgp.com or +1 650 319 9000.
About Vontu
Vontu is the leading provider of Data Loss Prevention solutions for both data at rest and data in motion. Vontu allows organizations to discover and protect exposed confidential information, monitor all network traffic, block select email, FTP and web communications, and automatically enforce data loss prevention policies. By reducing the frequency and severity of both inadvertent and malicious data loss incidents, Vontu helps organizations ensure public confidence, reduce compliance risk and protect competitive advantage. Vontu customers include Fortune 500 companies in financial services, insurance, high technology, retail, telecommunications, manufacturing, media, and healthcare, as well as state and federal government agencies. Vontu has received numerous awards, including SC Magazine's 2006 U.S. Excellence Award for "Best Enterprise Security Solution" and Global Award for "Best New Security Solution," as well as IDG's InfoWorld 2006 Technology of the Year Award for "Best Insider Threat Defense." For more information, please visit www.vontu.com.
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