The IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report revealed the global average cost of a data breach reached $4.88 million in 2024, as breaches grow more disruptive and further expand demands on cyber teams.
The report also found that 67% of organizations deployed security AI and automation – a near 10% jump from the prior year – and 20% stated they used some form of gen AI security tools. Organizations that employed security AI and automation extensively detected and contained an incident, on average, 98 days faster than organizations not using these technologies. At the same time, the global average data breach lifecycle hit a 7-year low of 258 days – down from 277 days the prior year and revealing that these technologies may be helping put time back on defenders’ side by improving threat mitigation and remediation activities.
Shorter breach lifecycles can also be attributed to the increase in internal detection: 42% of breaches were detected by an organization’s own security team or tools compared to 33% the prior year. Internal detection shortened the data breach lifecycle by 61 days and saved organizations nearly $1 million in breach costs compared to those disclosed by an attacker.
Data insecurities fuel intellectual property theft
According to the 2024 report, 40% of breaches involved data stored across multiple environments and more than one-third of breaches involved shadow data (data stored in unmanaged data sources), highlighting the growing challenge with tracking and safeguarding data.
These data visibility gaps contributed to the sharp rise (27%) in intellectual property (IP) theft. Costs associated with these stolen records also jumped nearly 11% from the prior year to $173 per record. IP may grow even more accessible as gen AI initiatives push this data and other highly proprietary data closer to the surface. With critical data becoming more dynamic and active across environments, businesses will need to reassess the security and access controls surrounding it.
Other key findings in the 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report include:
- Stolen credentials topped initial attack vectors – At 16%, stolen/compromised credentials was the most common initial attack vector. These breaches also took the longest to identity and contain at nearly 10 months.
- Fewer ransoms paid when law enforcement is engaged – By bringing in law enforcement, ransomware victims saved on average nearly $1 million in breach costs compared to those who didn’t – that savings excludes the ransom payment for those that paid. Most ransomware victims (63%) who involved law enforcement were also able to avoid paying a ransom.
- Critical infrastructure organizations see highest breach costs – Healthcare, financial services, industrial, technology and energy organizations incurred the highest breach costs across industries. For the 14th year in a row, healthcare participants saw the costliest breaches across industries with average breach costs reaching $9.77 million.
- Breach costs passed to consumers – Sixty-three percent of organizations stated they would increase the cost of goods or services because of the breach this year – a slight increase from last year (57%) – this marks the third consecutive year that the majority of studied organizations stated they would take this action.
