How Consumers Foot The Bill For Data Breaches [Infographic]

Matt Zajechowski http://www.authentify.com 2m 575 #databreach

The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.

Major security data breaches have hit big businesses across the globe in 2014. Big names such as eBay, Target, The University of Maryland and PF Changs have all been targeted. Most consumers shrug off these data breaches as a cost that is associated with e-commerce. Most consumers don’t realize that they will end up footing a portion of the data breach bill regardless of whether or not their personal information was compromised during the data breach. Authentify has created an infographic that shows the average cost of an average data breach as it trickles down to the consumer.

So how exactly does the cost get passed down to the consumer you might ask? Retailers will pass these costs through to consumers by charging higher prices for the same services. Where retails are on the hook for fraudulent online orders, their insurance pays the bill. This drives up the costs for all policy holders, which is passed on to shoppers by higher prices. Credit card providers have to roll back fraudulent charges that are made on stolen cards. They also have to reissue cards for everyone who is affected and that can cost up to $10 per card. These costs are also passed on to consumers through higher interest rates and credit card fees. To learn more about this, check out the graphic below.

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How Consumers Foot The Bill For Data Breaches

The fallout from the data breach at TARGET shows how expensive the attacks can be

$15.9 million in severance for their CEO, who resigned following the breach

$2.2 billion in possible fraudulent charges on stolen cards

$1.1 billion in possible fines

$443 million Target’s 40% fall in profits following the breach

But What About An “Average” Data Breach?

$5,403,644 Average organizational cost of a breach

28,765 Number of records compromised in an average data breach

$188 Average cost per compromised record

So How Do I End Up With The Bill?

Retailers

• Retailers pass these costs on through higher prices.
• Where retailers are on the hook for fraudulent online orders, their insurance pays the bill.
• This drives up costs for all policy holders, which is passed on to shoppers through higher prices.

Card Providers

• Credit card providers and banks have to roll back fraudulent charges made on stolen cards.
• They also have to reissue cards for anyone who might be affected. Each card costs $10 or more.
• These costs are passed on to consumers through higher interest rates and credit card fees, up to a 5 – 7% increase in some cases.

So What’s The Total Damage?

$140 billion in direct costs like those passed on to the consumer, and indirect costs, like higher taxes to pay for law enforcement

500,000 lost jobs, particularly in high-end manufacturing

And Is There Anything Else To Worry About?

Data breaches contribute to over half of all cases of identity theft

66% of identity theft victims suffer a financial loss

$9,650 is the average financial loss for an identity theft victim

Only 14% of identity theft victims have to pay these costs out of pocket, and most of those pay less than $100

But 10% of identity theft victims have to spend over a month resolving financial and credit problems

Presented by AUTHENTIFY

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