Companies Spend $11.7 Million on Average in 2017 to Mitigate Cybercrime Incidents, Finds Study

It costs $11.7 million on average for an organization to manage cybercrime incidents or to spend to recover disruption this year, an increase of 23 percent from 2016, said research Tuesday by Accenture and the Ponemon Institute. Based on a global survey of 2,182 security and IT professionals from 254 organizations, the study found that an organization, on average, experiences 130 breaches a year, up 27 percent from last year. The four main impacts to organizations are business disruption, loss of information, loss of revenue and damage to equipment, said a news release. It said malware and web-based attacks are the costliest types, with companies spending, on average, $2.4 million and $2 million, respectively. Incidents involving "malicious insiders" take about 50 days to mitigate, and ransomware takes about 23 days, the study said. Globally, among seven industrialized countries, U.S. companies reported the highest total average cost in cybercrime, while Australia reported the lowest.