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Research Summary: There’s nothing more terrifying than knowing your data has been exposed. After all, criminals around the world can take advantage of massive company breaches to steal your money, identity, and other valuable information. Data breaches are one of the most impactful security breaches in the U.S. today.
So, how costly are data breaches? Luckily, we’ve investigated all of the essential facts about data breaches, and according to our extensive research:
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There were 4,145 publicly disclosed data breaches globally in 2022.
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In 2022, there were 1,802 data compromises in the U.S.
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The average data breach in the U.S. costs $9.44 million.
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It takes an average of 287 days to identify and contain a major data breach.
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45% of U.S. companies have experienced a data breach.
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82% of data breaches are at least partially caused by human error.
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Healthcare data breaches account for 30% of total data breaches.
For further analysis, we broke down the data in the following ways:
Victim and Response | Cost | Trends | Healthcare
General Data Breach Statistics
Data breaches affect millions of people each year and expose billions of records. To understand just how common and destructive these breaches are, here are some general insights our research uncovered:
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There is a new data breach or cyber attack every 11 seconds.
You heard that correctly. In the five to ten minutes it’ll take you to read this article, there will have already been between 27-55 cyber attacks.
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The Yahoo! data breach was the largest breach in history, exposing over 3 billion user accounts.
Starting in 2013, the Yahoo! data breach will go down in history as one of the largest in the world. With over 3 billion user accounts exposed, that means up to 42% of the global population had their information exposed.
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Total cybercrime in 2021 cost a massive $6 trillion.
That means data breaches and cyber-attacks could be considered the third largest economy in the world, just behind the U.S. and China. An economy that’s only projected to increase to 10.5 trillion by 2025.
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Data Breach Victim and Response Statistics
Many of the people affected by data breaches can have their businesses and personal information put into jeopardy. Further, this is made even worse by how long it takes to identify threats. According to our research:
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28% of data breach victims are small businesses.
As if maintaining a successful business wasn’t hard enough, over one-fourth of data breach victims have their small businesses affected. Even worse, 60% of these businesses go out of business within six months of the breach.
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Organized crime groups are responsible for up to 85% of data breaches.
Much of this organized crime includes activities like phishing, hacking, and malware, all of which can cause serious damage to any company that’s ill-protected.
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It takes an average of 287 days to identify and contain a major data breach.
More specifically, simply identifying the breach takes an average of 212 days, while it takes roughly 75 days to contain it. Within this large timeframe, millions of people can have their information stolen and used against them.
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80% of data breaches are caused by poor or reused passwords.
While we all know how frustrating it is to use different passwords we’ll never be able to memorize, there’s a reason why you should do it. Reusing the same passwords over and over again can put you at a huge risk for data breaches.
That website you visited three years ago experienced a breach? Now all of your accounts are at risk because they use the same password.
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The number of healthcare data breaches increased by 164% between 2015-2021.
In 2015, there were 270 large healthcare data breaches, but this number increased to 714 in 2021. In fact, healthcare data breaches have consistently become more common year over year.
The Cost of Data Breaches Statistics
Data breaches often cost consumers, small businesses, major companies, and even governments billions of dollars. According to our research:
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Company sale prices fall by an average of -3.5% after a data breach.
Overall, 21 out of 40 data security breaches result in worse stock performance following the incident. This partially explains why companies and small businesses can experience a downward spiral after a breach.
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The cost of a data breach per record is $210 on average.
For healthcare breaches, this number is even higher, at an average of $429 per record. Now imagine over a million records being exposed at once, and that’s a conservative estimate. At that moment, a company would lose $210 million.
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The average data breach costs a whopping $4.35 million.
That’s a 12.7% increase from 2020, when the average data breach cost $3.86 million. Trends like working from home have only caused the cost of data breaches to increase, as more and more companies are going online and cannot monitor all of their employees.
Trends In Data Breach Statistics
As technology becomes further implemented into the workplace and our daily lives, so to have data breaches become a growing issue. For instance, our research shows that:
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2016 was a particularly bad year for individuals, with 2.54 billion being affected by data breaches.
In fact, 2016-2018 were all bad years for individuals, being the only years where the number of people affected surpassed 1 billion.
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471.23 million records were exposed in 2018.
Again, if we remember the average cost per record, that would mean 2018 data breaches alone cost companies almost $100 billion.
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There were 1,862 data breaches in 2021.
Though individually, these data breaches might not have been as large as in previous years, this is still a massive 137% increase from 2015.
Annual Data Compromises In The U.S.
Year Data compromises Number of records exposed (millions) Individuals impacted (millions) 2015 785 169.1 318.28 2016 1,099 36.6 2,540 2017 1,506 198 1,820 2018 1,175 471.23 2,230 2019 1,279 164.68 883.56 2020 1,108 N/A 310.12 2021 1,862 N/A 298.08 2022 1,802 N/A 422.14
Healthcare Data Breach Statistics
The healthcare industry has always been particularly vulnerable to data breaches, and a lot of sensitive information can be exposed when these breaches happen. For example:
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In the past decade, there have been 4,202 large healthcare data breaches.
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In 2021 alone, healthcare breaches exposed 45.67 million patient records.
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The average cost per record of a data breach in the healthcare industry is $429.
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At least one patient record is breached every single day.
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82% of data breaches are at least partially caused by human error.
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Healthcare data security breaches account for 30% of total data breaches.
Data Compromises In Healthcare
Year Data compromises 2015 270 2016 329 2017 358 2018 368 2019 512 2020 642 2021 714
Data Breach Statistics FAQ
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How many people experience data breaches?
Anywhere between a couple hundred million to over a billion people experience data breaches each year. In 2021 alone, 212.4 million U.S. users were impacted by data breaches. And this isn’t a particularly high number in the grand scheme.
For example, in 2016, there were 2.54 billion people impacted by data breaches worldwide.
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How many data breaches happen every day?
An estimated 20 data breaches occur every day. This also includes the healthcare industry, where at least one data breach occurs every day. Altogether, this equates to over 4,000 breaches per year.
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What is the most common cause of data breaches?
The most common cause of a data breach is weak and stolen credentials. In fact, 80% of data breaches are caused by poor or reused passwords.
Other common causes of breaches include:
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Application vulnerabilities
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Malware
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Malicious insiders
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Insider error
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Conclusion
In a world ruled by technology, data breaches are all too common and increasingly costly. In fact, 45% of U.S. companies have now experienced a data breach.
And considering the fact that the average data breach costs over $4 million, that isn’t a good thing. Just one record being exposed costs companies an average of $210.
Ultimately, the best way you can protect yourself and your data is by only making accounts with companies you trust and using different secure passwords for all of your accounts. Given that 80% of data breaches are caused by poor or reused passwords, this will already put you way ahead of the pack.
References
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Security. “Over 22 billion records exposed in 2021.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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TechRepublic. “Average cost of data breach surpasses $4 million for many organizations.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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GRC. “Human Error is Responsible for 82% of Data Breaches.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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Infima. “Every 11 Seconds.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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DataProt. “10 of the Biggest Data Breaches in History.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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Cybercrime Magazine. “Cybercrime To Cost The World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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Cybercrime Magazine. “60 Percent Of Small Companies Close Within 6 Months Of Being Hacked.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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OCCRP. “US Telecom Giant: Most Data Breaches are the Work of Organized Crime.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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Comparitech. “How data breaches affect stock market share prices.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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CyLumena. “Cost Of A Data Breach In 2020: 7 Hidden Soft-Costs.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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CRN. “LogMeIn: Poor or Reused Passwords Responsible for 80 Percent of Breaches.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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IBM. “How much does a data breach cost in 2022?” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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Statista. “Annual number of data compromises and individuals impacted in the United States from 2005 to first half 2022.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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HIPAA Journal. “Healthcare Data Breach Statistics.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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Media. “Breaches exposed 45.67M patient records in 2021, largest annual total since 2015.” Accessed on August 10th, 2022.
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Statista. “Annual number of data compromises and individuals impacted in the United States from 2005 to 2022.” Accessed on February 13, 2023.
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Statista. “Average cost of a data breach in the United States from 2006 to 2022.” Accessed on February 13, 2023.
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Author
Jack Flynn is a writer for Zippia. In his professional career he’s written over 100 research papers, articles and blog posts. Some of his most popular published works include his writing about economic terms and research into job classifications. Jack received his BS from Hampshire College.
