[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the financial damage caused by data breaches in companies worldwide has reached an all-time high.
According to a survey conducted by IBM from May last year to March this year targeting over 500 companies and organizations worldwide, the average cost of data breach incidents increased by about 10% compared to the previous survey, reaching an average of $4.24 million (approximately 4.88 billion KRW).
Among these, the average damage cost for 28 domestic companies was calculated at 4.11 billion KRW. The industry that suffered the greatest damage in Korea was the financial sector, followed by the service and information and communication technology (IT) sectors.
The most common attack method was the theft of user authentication information, with cloud configuration errors and phishing also reported. The attack method that caused the highest damage was business email compromise, with an average loss of 6.76 billion KRW.
IBM pointed to the rapid operational changes during the pandemic, such as companies increasing remote work, which made it difficult to control security incidents, as the main reason.
Among companies worldwide, about 20% responded that remote work was one of the factors in data breach incidents. Companies that included remote work as a cause of incidents experienced an average of $1 million more in damages than those that did not.
However, companies that adopted artificial intelligence (AI), security analytics, and encryption tools were able to reduce damage costs by approximately $1.25 million to $1.49 million compared to those that did not.
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