PRINCETON JUNCTION, N.J.– A new white paper suggests that theaverage cost paid by companies that have suffered data breaches is $5.9 million as of Dec. 31, 2014.
The paper, “The True Cost of Data Breaches in the Payments Industry,” was released by the Smart Card Alliance’s Payments Council, with the organization saying the goal is to help issuers, merchants, acquirers and processors to analyze and understand the potential costs of a data breach and create the business case for developing a proactive data breach prevention strategy and for creating breach response plans. The white paper can be downloaded here.
Issues addressed in the white paper:
- Definition of a data breach, clarifying how breaches can occur and what is considered a data breach
- Recent data breach statistics and reported costs.
- Definition of both quantifiable and intangible costs that need to be considered when calculating the total cost of a data breach. Some of the potential costs include card reissuance, chargebacks, credit monitoring, fraud analysis, legal fees, liability costs, loss of “top of wallet” status, lost revenue, penalties, security upgrades and others.
- Identification of the impact for different costs for each stakeholder group, including acquirers, merchants, issuers, card holders, payment brands and others.